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TRUE STORIES OF GREAT AMERICANS 



LAFAYETTE 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NKW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 




Lafayette. 
From an authentic portrait. This shows Lafayette as a youthful general. 



LAFAYETTE 



BY 
MARTHA FOOTE CROW 



And what gave he to us ? 
He gave his starry youth, 
His quick, audacious sword, 
His name, his crested plume. 
And what gave we ? 
We gave — a nation's heart 1 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1916 

Aii rights reserved 







Copyright, 1916, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1916. 



Norinaoti ^resa 
J. S. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Oo. 



MAY 18 1916 
©CI.A4311')2 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

A Boy of the French Nobility . . . . i 

CHAPTER H 
College and Court lo 

CHAPTER III 
A Boy's Ideals 21 

CHAPTER IV 
The Great Inspiration 27 

CHAPTER V 
First Days in America 42 

CHAPTER VI 

Lafayette at the Brandywine .... 52 

V 



vi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VII 

PAGB 

A Successful Failure 62 

CHAPTER VIII 
Lafayette at Monmouth 73 

CHAPTER IX 
The Return to France 86 

CHAPTER X 
Lafayette in Virginia 100 



CHAPTER XI 
The Two Redoubts m 

CHAPTER XII 
The Surrender of Yorktown . . , 119 | 

CHAPTER XIII 
Lionized by Two Worlds 128 

CHAPTER XIV 
Gathering Clouds i37 



CONTENTS vii 



CHAPTER XV 

PAGE 

Lafayette in Prison 144 



CHAPTER XVI 
An Attempted Rescue 154 

CHAPTER XVn 
A Welcome Release .... e . 171 

CHAPTER XVni , 

A Triumphal Tour 179 

CHAPTER XIX 
Last Days of Lafayette 193 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Portrait of Lafayette . 

The Council at Hopewell 

The Surrender of Cornwallis 

Francis Kinloch Huger . 

Lafayette's Carriage 

The Children's Statue of Lafayette 



Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 
78 

126 

160 
186 
196 



LAFAYETTE 

CHAPTER I 
A Boy of the French Nobility 

Among the rugged Auvergne Mountains, in the 
southern part of France, stands a castle that is 
severe and almost grim in its aspect. Two bare 
round towers flank the building on the right and 
on the left. Rows of lofty French windows are 
built across the upper part of the front, and the 
small, ungenerous doorway below has a line of 
portholes on either side that suggest a thought of 
warhke days gone by. 

This castle, built in the fourteenth century, is 
called the Chateau de Chaviniac de Lafayette. 
Though it was burned to the ground in 1701, it 
was rebuilt as nearly like the earHer structure as 
possible; hence it represents, as it stands, the 
chivalrous days of the crusading period and so 
forms a fitting birthplace for a hero. In this 
half-military chateau was born one of the most 



2 LAFAYETTE 

valiant champions of liberty that any country 
has ever produced — the Marquis de Lafayette. 

The climate of the Haute-Loire — the highlands 
of Auvergne — is harsh ; it has been called the 
French Siberia. There are upland moors Kke 
deserts across which sweep fierce winds, where the 
golden broom and the purple heather — flowers 
of the barren heights — are all that will flourish. 
There are, indeed, secluded valleys filled with 
muskmallows and bracken, but these are often 
visited by wild tempests, and sudden floods may 
make the whole region dreary and dangerous. 

In Lafayette's time the violence of the elements 
was not the only thing to be dreaded. When the 
children wandered too near the edge of the forest, 
they might catch sight of a wild boar nozzling 
about for mushrooms under the dead oak leaves; 
and if it had been a severe winter, it was quite 
within possibility that wolves or hyenas might 
come from their hiding places in the rocky recesses 
of the mountains and lurk hungrily near the 
villages. 

The family living in the old chateau was one 
whose records could be traced to the year one 
thousand, when a certain man by the name of 
Motier acquired an estate called Villa Faya, and 
thereafter he became known as Motier de la 



A BOY OF THE FRENCH NOBILITY 3 

Fayette. In 1240 Pons Motier married the 
noble Alix Brun de Champetieres ; and from 
their line descended the famous Lafayettes known 
to all Americans. Other Auvergne estates were 
added to the Chaviniac acres as the years went 
by, some with old castles high up in the mountains 
behind Chaviniac, and all these were inherited 
by the father of America's famous champion. 

Lafayette's father was a notable warrior, as his 
father had been — and his — and his — away 
back to the days of the Crusades. Pons Motier 
de la Fayette fought at Acre ; Jean Motier de la 
Fayette fell at Poitiers. There were marshals 
who bore the banner in many a combat of olden 
times when the Hfe of the country was at stake. 
It was a Lafayette who won the battle at Beauge 
in 142 1, when the EngHsh Duke of Clarence was 
defeated and his country was compelled to resign 
hope of a complete conquest of France. Among 
other men who bore the name, there were military 
governors of towns and cities, aids to kings in war, 
captains and seneschals. Many of them spent 
their lives in camps and on battlefields. One of 
them saw thirty years of active service; another 
found that after thirty-eight years of mihtary Hfe 
he had been present at no less than sixty-five 
sieges besides taking part in many pitched battles. 



4 LAFAYETTE 

Lafayette's grandfather was wounded in three 
battles ; and his uncle, Jacques Roch Motier, was 
killed in battle at the age of twenty- three. 

During the summer before Lafayette's birth, 
his father, the young chevalier and colonel, not 
then twenty-five, had been living quietly in the 
Chateau Chaviniac. But a great conflict was 
going on — the Seven Years' War was being 
waged. He heard the call of his country and he 
felt it his duty to respond. 

There was a sad parting from his beautiful 
young wife; then he dashed down the steep, 
rocky roadway from the chateau to the village, 
and so galloped away — over the plains, through 
fords and defiles, toward the German border — 
never to return. 

Lafayette's ancestors on his mother's side were 
equally distinguished for miHtary spirit. His 
mother was the daughter of the Comte de la 
Riviere, Heutenant general and captain of the 
second company of the King's Musketeers. 

But this "hero of two worlds" inherited some- 
thing more than military spirit. The ancestors 
from which he descended formed a line of true 
gentlefolk. For hundreds of years they had been 
renowned throughout the region of their Auvergne 
estates for lofty character and a kindly attitude 



A BOY OF THE FRENCH NOBILITY 5 

toward their humble peasant neighbors. It was 
only natural that this most famous representative 
of the Hne should become a valiant champion of 
justice and freedom. 

This great man was destined to have as many 
adventures as any boy of to-day could wish for. 
To recount them all would require not one book, 
but a dozen. Think of a lad of nineteen being a 
general in our Revolutionary War, and the trusted 
friend and helper of Washington ! Lafayette was 
present at the surrender of Cornwallis, boyishly 
happy at the achievements of the American sol- 
diery, and taking especial pride in his own Ameri- 
can regiment. This period was followed by a 
worthy career in France, but for five years — 
from his thirty-fifth year to his fortieth — he was 
unjustly imprisoned in a grim old Austrian fortress. 
At the age of sixty-seven he made a wonderful 
tour through our country, being received with 
ceremonies and rejoicings wherever he went ; for 
every one remembered with deep gratitude what 
this charming, courteous, elderly man had done 
for us in his youth. He Kved to the ripe age of 
seventy-seven, surrounded by children and grand- 
children, and interested in the work of the world 
up to the very last. 

The birth of Lafayette is recorded in the yellow 



6 LAFAYETTE 

and timeworn parish register of Chaviniac. This 
ancient document states that on September 6, 
1757, was born that ''very high and very puissant 
gentleman Monseigneur Marie- Joseph-Paul- Yves- 
Roch- Gilbert Dumotier de Lafayette, the lawful 
son of the very high and the very puissant Mon- 
seigneur Michel - Louis - Christophe - Roch - Gilbert 
Dumotier, Marquis de Lafayette, Baron de 
Wissac, Seigneur de Saint-Romain and other 
places, and of the very high and very puissant 
lady Madame Marie-Louise- Julie de la Riviere." 

But it was only on official documents that 
Lafayette's full name, terrifying in its length, 
was used. Reduced to republican simplicity, the 
Marquis de Lafayette's name was Gilbert Motier, 
although he was always proud of the military 
title, ''General," bestowed on him by our country. 
To tell the truth, imposing names meant Kttle to 
this friend of liberty, who was a true republican 
at heart and who, during the French Revolution, 
voluntarily resigned all the titles of nobility he 
had inherited. 

During his earliest childhood Lafayette was 
somewhat delicate. The child first opened his 
eyes in a sorrowful home at the old Chateau 
Chaviniac, for word had come, only a month be- 
fore, that Lafayette's father had been killed at 



A BOY OF THE FRENCH NOBILITY 7 

the battle of Minden, leaving the young mother 
a widow. The boy, however, grew in strength 
with the years. Naturally, all was done that 
could be done to keep him in health. At any rate, 
either through those mountain winds, or in spite 
of them, he developed a constitution so vigorous 
as to withstand the many strains he was to un- 
dergo in the course of his long and adventurous life. 

The supreme characteristic of the man showed 
early in the boy when, at only eight years of age, 
he became possessed of an unselfish impulse to go 
out and perform a feat which for one so young 
would have been heroic. It was reported in the 
castle that a dangerous hyena was prowling about 
in the vicinity of the estate, terrifying everybody. 
The boy's sympathy was roused, and, from the 
moment he first heard of it, his greatest longing 
was to meet the cruel creature and have it out with 
him. 

It is not recorded that the eight-year-old boy 
ever met that wild animal face to face, and it is 
well for the world that he did not. He was pre- 
served to stand up against other and more 
significant spoilers of the world's welfare. 

His education was begun under the care of his 
mother, assisted by his grandmother, a woman of 
unusually strong character; these, together with 



8 LAFAYETTE 

two aunts, formed a group whose memory was 
tenderly revered by Lafayette to the end of his life. 

The boy Lafayette cared a great deal for hunt- 
ing. Writing back to a cousin at home after he 
had been sent to Paris to school, he told her that 
what he would most like to hear about when she 
wrote to him would be the great events of the 
hunting season. His cousin, it appears, had 
written him an account of a hunt in the neighbor- 
hood, but she had not written enough about it to 
satisfy his desire. Why did she not give details? 
he asked. He reproachfully added that if he had 
been writing to her of a new-fashioned cap, he 
would have taken compass in hand and described 
it with mathematical accuracy. This she should 
have done concerning the great hunt if she had 
really wished to give him pleasure ! 

This fortunate boy could select any career he 
liked; courtier, lawyer, poUtician, writer, soldier 
— whatever he chose. Never came opportunity 
more richly laden to the doorway of any youth. 

He chose to be a soldier. The double-barred 
doors of iron, the lofty, protected windows, the 
military pictures on the walls of his home — all 
spoke to the Chaviniac child of warfare and con- 
flict. There was the portrait of his father in cui- 
rass and helmet. There were far-away ancestors 



A BOY OF THE FRENCH NOBILITY 9 

in glistening armor and laced jackets. There was 
also the military portrait of that Gilbert Motier de 
Lafayette who was marshal in the time of Charles 
VII, and whose motto ^'Cur non" (Why not?) 
was chosen by Lafayette for his own when he 
started on his first voyage. The instinct for war- 
fare, for the organization of armies, for struggle 
and conquest, were strong in him, and were fos- 
tered and nourished by every impression of his boy- 
hood's home. 



CHAPTER II 

College and Court 

In the year 1768 the boy Lafayette, then eleven 
years old, left his mountain home and went to 
Paris, where he was placed by his mother in the 
College du Plessis, a school for boys of the nobihty. 

The arrangements for the student in a French 
college at that time were simple. A room scarcely 
wider than a cell was assigned to each boy. It was 
locked at night ; but holes were cut in the door so 
that the fresh air might come in. This, at least, 
was the theory. Practically, however, the little 
cell must have been very stuffy, for the windows in 
the halls were shut tight in order that the health 
of the pupils might not be injured by currents of 
damp air from outside. 

Special attention was given to diet, care being 
taken that the boys should not eat any uncooked 
fruit lest it should injure them. Parents might 
come to visit their children, but they were not 
allowed to pass beyond the threshold — a familiar 

10 



COLLEGE AND COURT ii 

chat on home matters might interfere with the 
studious mood of the scholars. 

What were the studies of this young aristocrat? 

First and foremost, heraldry. From earhest 
days his tutors had instilled into him the idea that 
the study of the coats of arms of reigning and 
noble famihes, together with all that they stood 
for, was first in importance. 

Then the young student must dance, write, 
and draw. He must be able to converse wittily 
and with apt repartee. Fencing and vaulting 
were considered essential, as well as riding with 
grace and skill and knowing all about the manage- 
ment of the horse. 

As far as books were concerned, the Latin masters 
— Caesar, Sallust, Virgil, Terence, Cicero — were 
carefully studied. The boys were obhged to trans- 
late from Latin into French and from French into 
Latin. Occasionally this training proved useful. 
It is related that one of the French soldiers who 
came to New England and who could not speak 
English resorted to Latin and found to his joy 
that the inhabitant of Connecticut, from whom 
he wished to purchase suppKes for his regiment, 
could be communicated with by that obsolete me- 
dium ; and what would Lafayette have done when 
imprisoned in an Austrian dungeon if he had not 



12 LAFAYETTE 

been able to converse with his official jailers in 
the Latin tongue ! 

In historical studies the greatest attention was 
given to wars and treaties and acquisitions of 
territory. The royal families of his native coun- 
try and of neighboring kingdoms were made 
familiar. History was taught as if it were a rec- 
ord of battles only. Swords and coats of mail 
decorated the mantelpieces in the school and 
the latest methods of warfare were studied. 

In addition to all these military matters, a 
great deal of attention must have been given to 
acquiring the power of clear and forcible ex- 
pression in the French language. While Lafayette 
can never be included among the great orators of 
the world, he possessed a wonderfully pellucid 
and concise diction. He was a voluminous writer. 
If all the letters he sent across the ocean from 
America could be recovered from the bottom of 
the Atlantic, there would be enough to make several 
large volumes. Sometimes he dispatched as many 
as thirty letters at one time. He sent them by 
way of Spain, by way of Holland, or by any other 
roundabout route that offered promise of final 
delivery. But privateersmen frequently captured 
the boats that carried them, and very often the 
letter-bags were dropped overboard. Still another 



COLLEGE AND COURT 13 

circumstance deprived the world of many of his 
writings. When revolutionists took possession 
of the Lafayette home in Chaviniac, they sought 
in every nook and cranny to find evidence that 
they would have been glad to use against these 
representatives of the nobility. Madame de La- 
fayette had carefully stuffed all the letters she 
could find into the maw of the immense old range 
in the castle kitchen. Other treasures were buried 
in the garden, there to rot before they could be 
found again. 

Of the extant writings of Lafayette there are 
six volumes in French, made up of letters and 
miscellaneous papers, many of them on weighty 
subjects, while numerous letters of Lafayette 
are to be found among the correspondence of 
George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin 
Franklin, and other statesmen and generals of 
Revolutionary days. 

Of the EngHsh language Lafayette's knowledge 
was mainly gained during the six long weeks of 
his first voyage to America. And what he ac- 
quired he at once put into practice. He learned 
the language from books, and from good books. 
As a result his EngHsh, both spoken and written, 
had a special poHsh. 

At the College du Plessis Lafayette was an in- 



14 LAFAYETTE 

dustrious student. All his life he regarded time 
as a gift of which the best use was to be made, 
and, according to his own expression, he was 
"not at hberty to lose it himself, and still less 
to be the occasion of the loss of it to others." 
Therefore he would not, unless it was absolutely 
unavoidable, be unpunctual to engagements, or 
keep people waiting his pleasure. As a boy in 
college he never had to be urged to study ; neither 
was he in any way an unmanageable boy. In 
spite of the intensity of his nature, he never 
deserved to be chastised. 

It should be understood that corporal chastise- 
ment was the rule in the schools of that time. In 
the year 1789 one simple-hearted old school- 
master solemnly reported that during the fifty 
years of his experience as teacher he administered 
nine hundred thousand canings, twenty thousand 
beatings, one hundred thousand slaps, and twenty 
thousand switchings. Among smaller items he 
mentions ten thousand fillips and a milHon and 
a quarter raps and hits. He hurled a Bible, a 
catechism, or a singing-book at some hapless 
child twelve thousand times, and caused seven 
hundred to kneel on peas as a punishment. Then 
he punished eight hundred thousand for not learn- 
ing their lessons and seventy-six thousand for not 



COLLEGE AND COURT 15 

learning their Bible verses. So much for one 
teacher a half century before Lafayette's day! 
And people still talk and write about "the good 
old times " ! 

The surroundings of Lafayette during his youth 
must have been of a kind to develop strength of 
character. He was to be one of the historical per- 
sonages against whom scandalmongers have not 
been able to unearth a mass of detraction. His 
close companions during army days testified that 
they never heard him swear or use gross language 
of any kind. As Edward Everett in his great 
eulogy said, from Lafayette's home, his ancestry, 
his education, his aristocratic marriage, and his 
college Hfe, he ''escaped unhurt." 

Lafayette's mother took up her residence in 
Paris in order to be near her son. She allowed 
herself to be presented at court that she might 
be in touch with what was going on and give her 
boy all the aid possible. She saw to it that 
her uncle should place him in the army hsts 
that he might secure the advantage of early 
promotion. 

After a while the tall boy was entered in the 
regiment of the Black Musketeers, and it became 
a favorite occupation of his to watch the pictur- 
esque reviews of those highly trained soldiers. This 



i6 LAFAYETTE 

entertainment was for holidays, however, and did 
not interfere with his studies. 

It was not for very many years that Lafayette 
was to profit by his highborn mother's devoted 
care and foresight. In 1770, when her son was 
only thirteen years old, she died in Paris. In a 
painting on the walls of the chateau to-day the 
face of that aristocratic lady shines out in its 
delicate beauty. A pointed bodice of cardinal- 
colored velvet folds the slender form and loose 
sleeves cover the arms. In the romantic fashion 
of the pre-revolutionary period, the arm is held 
out in a dramatic gesture, and one tiny, jeweled 
hand clasps the shepherd's crook, the consecrated 
symbol of the story-book lady of that period. 

About the time of her death, one of her uncles 
passed away, leaving to the young student at the 
College du Plessis a large and valuable estate. 
This placed Lafayette in a very advantageous 
position so far as worldly matters were concerned. 
His fortune being now princely, his record at col- 
lege without blemish, his rank unexceptionable 
among the titles of nobility, he was quickly men- 
tioned as an eligible partner in marriage for a young 
daughter of one of the most influential families 
in France, — a family that lived, said one American 
observer, in the splendor and magnificence of a 



COLLEGE AND COURT 17 

viceroy, which was little inferior to that of a king. 
This daughter was named, in the grand fashion 
of the French nobility, Marie- Adrienne-Frangoise 
de Noailles. In her family she was called simply 
Adrienne. 

Adrienne de Noailles was not old enough to 
give promise of the greatness of character of which 
she later showed herself possessed; but, as it 
proved, Lafayette found that in her he had a com- 
panion who was indeed to be his good genius. She 
became the object of the unwavering devotion of 
his whole life ; and she responded with an affection 
that was without Hmit; she gave a quick and 
perfect understanding to all his projects and his 
ideals; she followed his career with an utterly 
unselfish zeal ; and when heavy sorrows came, her 
courage and her cleverness were Lafayette's re- 
source. Her name should appear among those 
of the world's heroines. 

At the time of the proposed alliance, Lafayette 
was fourteen; the suggested fiancee was scarcely 
twelve. Her mother, the Duchess d'Ayen, a 
woman of great efficiency and of lofty character, 
knew that the Marquis de Lafayette was almost 
alone in the world, with no one to guide him in 
his further education or to lend aid in advancing 
his career. Moreover, she held that to have so 



l8 LAFAYETTE 

large a fortune was rather a disadvantage than 
otherwise, since it might be a help or a hindrance, 
according to the wisdom of the owner, and she 
rightly saw that the allurements of the Paris of 
1770 to an unprotected youth of fortune would be 
almost irresistible. She therefore refused to allow 
a daughter of hers to accept the proposal. For 
several months she withheld her consent, but at 
last she relented, on consideration that the young 
people should wait for two years before the mar- 
riage should take place. This admirable mother, 
who had carefully educated and trained her 
daughters, now took the further education of 
Lafayette into her care; she soon became very 
fond of him and cherished him as tenderly as if he 
had been her own son. 

The marriage took place in Paris on the nth of 
April, 1774. It was an affair of great splendor. 
There were many grand banquets; there were 
visits of ceremony, with new and elaborate toilettes 
for each visit; there were numberless beautiful 
presents, the families represented and their many 
connections vying with each other in the richness 
and fineness of their gifts. Diamonds and jewels 
in settings of quaint design were among them, and 
besides all these there were the ancestral jewels 
of Julie de la Riviere, the mother of Lafayette, 



COLLEGE AND COURT 19 

to be received by the new bride, and by her handed 
down to her descendants. 

The arrangement was that the wedded pair 
should make their home with the mother of the 
bride, the young husband paying eight thousand 
Hvres a year as his share of the expense. The 
sumptuous home was the family mansion of the 
Noailles family; it was situated in the rue St. 
Honore, not far from the palace of the Tuileries, 
at the corner where the rue d'Alger has now been 
cut through. The Hotel de Noailles it was called, 
and it was so large that to an observer of to-day 
it would appear more Hke a splendid hotel than 
like a private residence. When, a few years after 
Lafayette's wedding, John Adams was represent- 
ing the United States in Paris, and was entertained 
in this palatial home, he was so amazed that he 
could not find words in English or in French to 
describe the elegance and the richness of the res- 
idence. In it were suites of rooms for several 
families, for troops of guests, and for vast retinues 
of servants. The building measured from six 
hundred to seven hundred feet from end to end. 
There were splendid halls and galleries and ar- 
cades. Toward the street the facade was plain 
but the interior was decorated with astonishing 
richness. The inner rooms faced on a garden 



20 LAFAYETTE 

so large that a small hunt could be carried on within 
it, with fox, horses, and hounds, all in full cry. 
Magnificent trees waved their branches above the 
great garden, and rabbits burrowed below. 

Here was a delightful place for a few people to 
pursue beautiful lives. John Adams made a note 
of the fact that the Noailles family held so many 
offices under the king that they received no less 
than eighteen million livres (more than three and 
a half million dollars) income each year. It 
must be remembered that the streets of Paris about 
this time were crowded with a rabble of beggars. 
But of this the dwellers in such magical palaces 
and parks saw but little and thought less. 

Conditions such as these give a hint of the causes 
that led to the French Revolution and explain in 
some degree why thoughts of liberty, fraternity, 
and equality were haunting the minds of the 
youth of France, and, to some of the more open- 
minded among them, suggesting dreams of noble 
exploit. 



CHAPTER III 
A Boy's Ideals 

By this time Lafayette was a tall, slender young 
fellow, of commanding height, and with a look of 
piercing and imperative sincerity in his clear, hazel 
eyes. His hair was red — some one in the family 
used to call him "the big boy with red hair"; 
but hero worshipers need have no misgivings about 
this characteristic, nor feel that they must apolo- 
gize for it as a defect. Lafayette said of himself 
that he was an awkward boy. It may be that the 
youth who was rapidly growing to a height of 
"five feet eleven" may have felt, as most boys do 
at that age, as if he were all hands and feet. But 
that Lafayette was really awkward — it is un- 
thinkable ! Not one single lady of all the beauties 
in France and America, who handed it down 
to her descendants that she "once danced with 
Lafayette," ever mentioned the fact that her 
partner lacked any element of grace, while many 
speak of the ease of manner and address of the 



22 LAFAYETTE 

distinguished man. One friend of Lafayette's 
early days reports that he was too tall to make a 
distinguished appearance on horseback or to 
dance with special grace; but this was said in a 
period when the dancing-master's art was the 
ideal of social conduct. Those who did not know 
Lafayette very well at this time thought him 
cold and serious and stiff. Perhaps he was shy ; 
yet beneath that calm exterior seethed a volcano of 
emotion of which no casual onlooker dreamed. 

Lafayette was fortunate in having a cousin, 
the Count de Segur, who understood him and 
who realized that under that surface of gravity 
was hidden, as he said, ''a spirit the most active, 
a character the most firm, a soul the most burning 
with passionate fervor." 

After his marriage Lafayette continued his 
studies at the College du Plessis, and later he spent 
a year at the military academy at Versailles, that 
his education as an officer might be complete. 

In the summer his inclinations led him to make 
various journeys to the fortified city of Metz, 
where the regiment "de Noailles" was in garrison 
under the charge of the Prince de Poix who was a 
brother-in-law of Adrienne, Lafayette's wife. On 
his way back from one of these visits he stayed at 
Chaillot for a time and there was inoculated for 



A BOY'S IDEALS 23 

smallpox. This preventive method was a medical 
novelty at that time. To submit to the experi- 
ment showed a great freedom from prejudice on 
the part of the youth. The Duchess d'Ayen had 
once suffered from the ravages of this disease, 
so she could safely stay with the now adored son- 
in-law through this disagreeable period of seclusion. 
Soon after this the youthful Marquis de La- 
fayette and his shy girl bride were presented at 
court. The benevolent king, Louis XVI, was then 
reigning. The queen, Marie Antoinette, was the 
head of a social life that was elaborately formal 
and splendid. Marie Antoinette herself was young 
and light-hearted, and was at this time without 
fears from misadventure at the hands of the state 
or from any personal enemies. The king had 
thousands of servants and attendants in his mili- 
tary and personal households. A court scene was 
a display of knots of ribbon, lace ruffles, yellow 
and pink and sky-blue satin coats, shoes with 
glittering buckles, red-painted heels, and jeweled 
trimmings. Fountains threw their spray aloft, 
and thousands of candles flung radiance broad- 
cast. Said Chateaubriand, '^No one has seen 
anything who has not seen the pomp of Ver- 
sailles." And no one dreamed that the end was 
Hearing, or realized that no nation can live when 



24 LAFAYETTE 

the great mass of the people are made to toil, 
suffer, and die, in order that a favored few may 
have luxuries and amusement. 

Into this Vanity Fair the young Marquis de 
Lafayette was now plunged. The grand world 
flowed to the feet of the Marquis and Marchioness 
de Lafayette. More than that, the queen at 
once took the tall, distinguished-looking young 
chevalier into the circle of her special friends. 
The circle included some who were to follow 
Lafayette in his adventure to the New World in 
aid of American independence, and some who were 
to follow in another long procession equally ad- 
venturous and as likely to be fatal — the Rev- 
olution in their own country. During the Terror 
some of them, including their beautiful and well- 
meaning queen, were to lose their lives. Of any 
such danger as this, these young nobles, in the 
present state of seemingly joyous and abundant 
prosperity, were farthest from dreaming. 

On the whole, however, court life did not have 
much charm for Lafayette. It was a part of the 
duty of the Marquis and Marchioness de Lafayette 
to take part in the plays and merrymakings that 
centered about a queen who loved amusement 
only too well. But Lafayette could not throw 
his whole heart into the frivolity of the social 



A BOY'S IDEALS 25 

sphere in which he was now moving. There were 
features of life at court that he could not tolerate. 
His knee would not crook; he already knew, as 
Everett said, that he was not born "to loiter in 
an antechamber." 

It was liberty itself — the revolt against tyranny 
in every realm of life — that interested him from 
the first. Lafayette was against whatever stood 
for tyranny, against whatever appeared to be an 
institution that could foster despotism. He be- 
lieved that the well-being of society would be 
advanced by giving the utmost freedom to all, 
high and low, educated and uneducated. He saw 
a world in chains only waiting for some hero to 
come along and strike off the fetters. 

Where did Lafayette, a born aristocrat, get 
these ideas? Certainly not from the peasants as 
they knelt beside the road when he, their pro- 
spective liege lord, rode by. He was brought up 
to believe that it was the sacred privilege of the 
ruling class to throw largesse to the poor, who 
stood aside, waiting and expectant, to receive the 
gifts. 

It is hard to say where Lafayette imbibed his 
love of freedom. One might as well ask where that 
"wild yeast in the air" comes from that used to 
make the bread rise without "emptins." There 



26 LAFAYETTE 

was a "wild yeast in the air" in the France of 
1760 and 1770, and all the young people of that 
country, whether highborn or lowborn, were feel- 
ing the ferment. 

If Lafayette had pursued the course that his 
circumstances urged, he would soon have crys- 
tallized into a narrow, subservient character, 
without purpose or ideals. By all the standards 
of his time, he would be thought to be throwing 
away his life if he should take steps to alienate 
himself from the glittering, laughing, sympathetic 
friends who stood about him at court. All ad- 
vancement for him appeared to be in line with the 
influences there. But if he had done this, if he 
had followed the star of court preferment, he would 
have remained only one of many highly polished 
nonentities — and would have lost his head at 
last. By throwing away his life, by choosing the 
way of self-sacrifice, he won the whole world ; by 
throwing away his world, the natural world of 
compliance and ease about him, he won a world, 
nay, two worlds. He became what Mirabeau 
named him, the "hero of two worlds." 



CHAPTER IV 

The Great Inspiration 

In the summer of 1775 Lafayette was stationed 
at the French garrison of Metz, where the Prince 
de Poix commanded the regiment ''de Noailles." 
While he was there the Duke of Gloucester, brother 
of George HI, king of England, came to that city 
and was present at a dinner given in his honor at 
the house of the governor of the garrison, the Count 
de BrogHe. This count was a person of great 
sympathy and discernment. He had been observ- 
ing the tall, red-haired boy of quiet, assured man- 
ner and few words, who represented so distinguished 
a family and gave so great promise for a future 
career. Eighteen years before he had seen this 
boy's father fall in battle, so he had a special in- 
terest in him. He now included young Lafayette 
among the guests at the dinner. - 

It appears that the Duke of Gloucester had 
just received letters from England telling about 
the revolt of the American colonies against the 

27 



28 LAFAYETTE 

British government — about their prejudice in the 
little matter of a tax on tea, and about the strong 
measures to be taken by the English ministry to 
crush the rebeUion. As the Duke of Gloucester 
was not on very good terms with his brother, King 
George, he told the story with somewhat vindic- 
tive glee. 

This was probably the first that Lafayette had 
heard of American independence. Instantly his 
sympathy was touched to the quick. All the war- 
like and chivalric sentiments that he had inherited, 
all that had been carefully instilled by family tra- 
dition and by education, rose at once to the high- 
est intensity. To the long and eager conversations 
that followed the news brought by the guest of 
the evening, Lafayette eagerly Kstened, and after- 
wards requested the duke to explain the situation 
more fully. His curiosity was deeply excited, his 
heart was at once enhsted. The idea of a people 
fighting against oppression stirred his imagination. 
From what he learned from the duke, the cause 
appealed to his sense of justice; it seemed the 
noblest that could be offered to the judgment of 
man. Before he left the table he had determined 
in his own mind to go to America and offer him- 
self to the people who were struggHng for freedom 
and independence. 



THE GREAT INSPIRATION 29 

From that moment his purpose was fixed. To 
realize his design he must go at once to Paris. 
Arriving there, he confided his plan to his two 
friends, the Viscount de Noailles and the Count 
de Segur, inviting them to share his project. 
Noailles had just turned nineteen, and Segur was 
twenty-two ; Lafayette was eighteen. But the 
youngest differed from the others in one respect; 
he had already come into his fortune, and con- 
trolled an income of about two thousand livres, 
an amount that in purchasing power represented 
a fortune such as few young men in any country 
or at any time have commanded. The others could 
contribute nothing to Lafayette's plans but cor- 
dial sympathy. They did indeed go so far as to 
consult their parents, expressing their desire to 
join in Lafayette's chivalrous adventure, but their 
parents promptly and emphatically refused consent. 

The surprise of the Noailles family can be 
imagined when they heard that the quiet, reserved 
youth had suddenly decided to cross the sea and 
take up the fragile cause of a few colonists revolt- 
ing against a great monarchy. It was not long 
before all came to admit that the soul of the big 
boy had in it a goodness and a valor that nothing 
could daunt. 

Many, however, who heard about the project 



30 LAFAYETTE 

Lafayette entertained felt a new admiration for 
the spirited boy. One of these smartly said that 
if Madame de Lafayette's father, the Due d'Ayen, 
could have the heart to thwart such a son-in-law, 
he ought never to hope to marry off his remaining 
daughters ! It made no difference to this lordly 
family that the tidings of the American revolt 
were echoing through Europe and awakening 
emotions that those monarchies had never ex- 
perienced before; nor did they notice that the 
young nobility of France were feeling the thrill of 
a call to serve in a new cause. They were blind 
to those signs of the times; and no one dared to 
speak of them to the Duke d'Ayen, for he, with 
the other ruling members of the family, violently 
opposed Lafayette's plan. 

While these things were going on, word came 
that those audacious colonists had carried their 
project so far as to issue a Declaration of Inde- 
pendence of the British government and to set up 
for themselves as a nation. The Noailles family 
were amazed, but they could not change their 
point of view. 

Not being able to unravel all the threads of des- 
tiny that were enmeshing him, Lafayette was 
working in the dark, only knowing that he wanted 
to go, and that he could not bring himself to give 



THE GREAT INSPIRATION 31 

up the project. He knew also that he must de- 
pend solely upon himself. Then there came into 
his mind the motto that he had since boyhood seen 
upon the shield of one of his famous ancestors in 
the castle at Chaviniac — '^Cur non," Why not? 
He adopted this motto for his own and placed it 
as a device upon his coat of arms, that it might be 
an encouragement to himself as well as an answer 
to the objections of others. 

Lafayette consulted his commander and rela- 
tive, the Count de BrogKe. He on his part did all 
he could to dissuade the lad ; he pointed out that 
the scheme was Utopian; he showed up its great 
hazards; he said that there was no advantage to 
be had in going to the aid of those insignificant 
rebels — that there was no glory to be gained. 
Lafayette listened respectfully and said that he 
hoped his relative would not betray his confidence ; 
for, as soon as he could arrange it, go to America 
he would! The Count de Broglie promised not 
to reveal his secret, but he added : 

"I have seen your uncle die in the wars of Italy ; 
I witnessed your father's death at the battle of 
Minden ; and I will not be accessory to the ruin 
of the only remaining branch of the family." 

These things made no impression upon the de- 
termination of the young hero, and the Count de 



32 LAFAYETTE 

Broglie was in despair. When he finally found, 
however, that the boy's determination was fixed, 
he entered into his plans with almost paternal 
tenderness. Though he would give him no aid, 
he introduced him to the Baron de Kalb who was 
also seeking an opportunity to go to America, and 
he thought his age and experience would be of 
value to the young adventurer. 

This Baron de Kalb was an officer in the French 
army with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was 
a man of fifty-five, who had served in the Seven 
Years' War and who had been employed by the 
French government ten years before to go secretly 
to the American colonies in order to discover how 
they stood on the question of their relations with 
England. 

At that time there was a representative of the 
colonies in Paris to whom all who felt an interest 
in American Hberty had recourse. This man was 
Silas Deane. To him Lafayette secretly went. 

''When I presented to Mr. Deane my boyish 
face," said Lafayette later in Hfe, ''I dwelt more 
(for I was scarcely nineteen years of age) upon 
my ardor in the cause than on my experience." 

Naturally, for he had had no experience what- 
ever. But he could speak of the effect that his 
going would have upon France, since because of 



THE GREAT INSPIRATION 33 

his family and connections notice would surely be 
taken of his action. This might influence other 
young men and might win favor for the colonies 
in their struggle. Silas Deane was quick to see 
this and to draw up an agreement which he asked 
Lafayette to sign. It was as follows : 

'^The wish that the Marquis de Lafayette has 
shown to serve in the army of the United States of 
North America and the interest that he takes in 
the justice of their cause, making him wish for 
opportunities to distinguish himself in the war, 
and to make himself useful to them as much as 
in him Hes ; but not being able to obtain the con- 
sent of his family to serve in a foreign country and 
to cross the ocean, except on the condition that he 
should go as a general officer, I have beheved that 
I could not serve my country and my superiors 
better than by granting to him, in the name of 
the very honorable Congress, the rank of Major- 
General, which I beg the States to confirm and 
ratify and to send forward his commission to en- 
able him to take and hold rank counting from to- 
day, with the general officers of the same grade. 
His high birth, his connections, the great dignities 
held by his family at this court, his disinterested- 
ness, and, above all, his zeal for the freedom of 
our colonies, have alone been able to induce me to 

D 



34 LAFAYETTE 

make this promise of the said rank of Major- 
General, in the name of the United States. In 
witness of which I have signed these presents, done 
at Paris, this seventh of October, seventeen hun- 
dred and seventy-six." 

To this starthng document the undaunted boy 
affixed the following : 

*^To the above conditions I agree, and promise 
to start when and how Mr. Deane shall judge it 
proper, to serve the said States with all possible 
zeal, with no allowance nor private salary, reserv- 
ing to myself only the right to return to Europe 
whenever my family or my king shall recall me; 
done at Paris this seventh day of October, 1776. 

(signed) ''The Marquis de Lafayette." 

About this time Dr. Benjamin Franklin was 
added to the group of American envoys. He was 
an instant success in the Parisian world. With 
his baggy coat, his coonskin cap, and his one-eyed 
spectacles, Franklin was the admired of all the 
grand ladies of the court, while his ability to 
''bottle lightning" was a favorite topic for dis- 
cussion. The queen favored FrankHn and the 
American cause ; the king also ; but neither dared 
to say so openly lest the spies of England, France's 
hereditary enemy, should find it out. Lafayette 
was obhged to preserve the utmost secrecy in 



THE GREAT INSPIRATION 35 

making his arrangements and to secure the in- 
terviews in such a way that no one would suspect 
what he was planning. 

Unfortunately, bad news began to come from 
America. The disasters of Long Island and 
White Plains had befallen, and the EngHsh army 
was being reenforced by regiments of Hessians. 
This news destroyed what credit the colonies had 
in France. No one now had any hope for their 
endeavors, and no one could be found who would 
consider fitting out a vessel for Lafayette and his 
friends. 

The American envoys thought it no more than 
right to tell this to the eager Lafayette and to try 
to dissuade him from his project to go to America. 
To this end they sent him word to come for another 
secret conference. He did so, and the envoys 
explained to him the discouraging situation. 

One of the points wherein this young Lafayette 
approached nearest to greatness was in the way 
he could face some black disaster, and, with an 
absolutely quenchless spirit and the most adroit 
cleverness, turn the disaster into an advantage. 
This happened when Lafayette went to see these 
envoys. He received the news with a brow of 
unruffled calm. He thanked Mr. Deane for his 
kindness in trying to save him from disaster. Then 



36 LAFAYETTE 

he added : ^' Until now, Sir, you have only seen my 
ardor in your cause ; I may now prove to be really 
useful. I shall myself purchase a ship to carry 
out your officers. We must show our confidence 
in the future of the cause, and it is especially in 
the hour of danger that I wish to share your for- 
tunes." 

This reply cast another light upon the circum- 
stances. The American envoys regarded the 
enthusiasm of the young nobleman with approba- 
tion ; the plan was pressed forward, preparations 
were made to find a vessel, to buy it, and fit it out. 
All this had to be done secretly, as the eagerness 
of Lafayette called for haste. 

Meantime, a plan had been made for Lafayette 
to go on a visit to England with his relative, the 
Prince de Poix. It would be better not to inter- 
fere with the arrangement already made, it was 
thought ; though Lafayette was impatient to carry 
out his plan for embarking, he wisely agreed to 
visit England first. In this plan Mr. Deane and 
Dr. Franklin concurred. 

Lafayette made the journey with the Prince de 
Poix, and for three weeks had a busy time, being 
richly entertained and observing English life. He 
was in a rather delicate situation, for he was now 
a guest among a people with whom in one respect 



THE GREAT INSPIRATION 37 

he could not sympathize and toward whom he en- 
tertained a hostile feehng. But in all he did he 
carefully drew the line between the honor of the 
guest and the attitude of the diplomatist. Though 
he went to a dance at the house of Lord Germain, 
minister of the English colonies, and at that of 
Lord Rawdon, who had but just come from New 
York, and though he made the acquaintance of the 
Clinton whom he was soon to meet on opposing 
, sides of the battle line at Monmouth, he chival- 
! rously denied himself the pleasure and profit of 
inspecting the fortifications and seaports where 
ships were being fitted out to nght the American 
1 rebels. More than that; he openly avowed his 
feelings about the hazardous and plucky attempt 
; of the colonies to free themselves from England; 
and he frankly expressed his joy when news of their 
success at Trenton was received. This very spirit 
of independence in the young French noble made 
j him all the more a favorite among the English who, 
I together with their king, did not in the least 
\ dream that the foohsh rebels across the sea could 
accomplish anything by their fantastic revolt. 

Among other acquaintances made in England 
at this time was one Fitzpatrick, whose life was 
to be strangely mingled with Lafayette's in later 
days. Fighting on opposite sides of the conflict 



38 LAFAYETTE 

in America, they were yet to meet cordially be- 
tween battles, and Lafayette was to send letters 
in Fitzpatrick's care to his wife in France — let- 
ters in which he took pains to inclose no matters 
relating to the war, since that would have been 
unsportsmanlike; still later, owing to a tragic 
concurrence of events, this even-minded and 
generous Englishman was to make persistent ap- 
peals to the English government to take measures 
to free Lafayette from a hateful imprisonment in 
an Austrian stronghold, gallant appeals, made, 
alas, in vain 1 

As soon as Lafayette could conveniently with- 
draw from his English hosts he did so, and hurried 
back to Paris, where he kept himself as much out 
of sight as possible until the final preparations for 
the voyage were completed. At last all was ready 
and Lafayette reached Bordeaux where the boat 
was waiting. Here swift messengers overtook 
him to say that his plans were known at Versailles. 
Lafayette set sail, but he went only as far as Los 
Pasajos, a small port on the north coast of Spain. 
Here letters of importance awaited the young 
enthusiast, impassioned appeals from his family 
and commands from his king. The sovereign for- 
bade his subject to proceed to the American con- 
tinent under pain of punishment for disobedience; 



i 



THE GREAT INSPIRATION 39 



instead, he must repair to Marseilles and there 
await further orders. 

Lafayette knew what this meant. His father* 
in-law was about to go to Italy and would pass 
Marseilles on the way. Lafayette was to be made 
to go with him on an expedition where he knew 
he would be monotonously employed, with no 
prospect of exercising his energies in any congenial 
project. He was not without many proofs as to 
what might happen to him if he disobeyed these 
orders and risked the displeasure of the king. The 
Bastille was still standing and the royal power was 
absolute ! 

Letters from his wife also made a strong appeal. 
A little child now brightened their home ; yet the 
young husband and father must have reflected 
that his own father had left a young and beautiful 
wife; that the young soldier had torn himself 
away from his home and bride in Chaviniac, fol- 
lowing the lure of arms, and had, but a few weeks 
before his own son's birth, rushed off to the battle- 
field where he ran the risk of returning no more. 
Why should not the son take the same risk and 
leave all for a great cause ? To be sure, the father 
lost in the venture, but perhaps the son would 
not. It was in the Lafayette blood to seek for 
hazard and adventure. Cur non ? Why not ? 



40 LAFAYETTE 

He was convinced that he would do no harm to 
any one but himself by following out his purpose, 
and he decided not to risk further interference from 
family or ministry. To get away safely he adopted 
a ruse. He started out as if to go to Marseilles ; 
but costuming himself as a courier, he proceeded 
instead toward Los Pasajos, where his ship and 
friends were awaiting him. The masquerade was 
successful until he reached St. Jean de Luz where 
a hairbreadth escape was in store for him. Here 
certain officers were watching for Lafayette. The 
clever daughter of an innkeeper recognized him 
as the young nobleman who had passed some days 
before on the way to Bordeaux. A sign from 
Lafayette was enough to keep her from making 
known her discovery, and he slept, unrecognized, 
on the straw in the stable, while one of his fellow- 
adventurers played the part of passenger. This 
is why it has been said that but for the clever wit 
of an innkeeper's daughter, Lafayette might have 
languished for the next few years in the Bastille 
instead of spending them gloriously in aiding us to 
gain our independence. 

Lafayette reached Los Pasajos in safety. From 
the picturesque cliffs back of the harbor he saw 
his ship, La Victoire — name of good omen ! — 
lying at anchor. There was the happy meeting 



THE GREAT INSPIRATION 41 

of friends who were to share his adventures and 
successes in the New World, and on the 20th of 
April, 1777, they sailed forth on their voyage. 

Two letters followed the enthusiastic fugitive. 
One was from Silas Deane, who testified to the 
American Congress that a young French nobleman 
of exalted family connections and great wealth 
had started for America in order to serve in the 
American army. He affirmed that those who 
censured his act as imprudent still applauded his 
spirit; and he assured Congress that any respect 
shown Lafayette in America would be appreciated 
by his powerful relations, by the court, and by the 
whole French nation. 

The other letter was a royal mandate calling 
upon the American Congress to refuse all employ- 
ment whatsoever to the young Marquis de Lafay- 
ette. The first letter traveled fast; the second 
missive was subjected to intentional delays and 
did not reach its destination until Lafayette had 
been made an officer in the American army. 



CHAPTER V 

First Days in America 

"Here one day follows another, and what is 
worse, they are all alike. Nothing but sky and 
nothing but water; and to-morrow it will be just 
the same." 

So wrote the restless Lafayette when he had 
been four weeks on the ship. The time had thus 
far been spent, after a sharp afEiction of seasick- 
ness, in studying books on miHtary science, and on 
the natural features of the country he was ap- 
proaching. 

In time land-birds were seen, and he sat down 
to write to Adrienne a fifteen-hundred-word letter 
which should be sent back by the first returning 
ship. \ 

''It is from very far that I am writing to you, 
dear heart," he began, ''and to this cruel separa- 
tion is added the still more dreadful uncertainty 
of the time when I shall hear from you again. I 
hope, however, that it is not far distant, for, 

42 



^ FIRST DAYS IN AMERICA 43 

of all the many causes that make me long to get 
ashore again, there is nothing that increases my im- 
patience Hke this." 

The thought of his little daughter Henriette 
comes forward again and again. ^'Henriette is 
so deHghtful that she has made me in love with 
all little girls," he wrote. 

Never did a more gallant company set sail than 
these young noblemen of France who were follow- 
ing a course across the sea only a Httle more north- 
erly than that which Columbus first traced, and 
with something of the same high hazard that in- 
spired the great discoverer. Their names should 
be remembered by a people that profited by their 
bravery. Besides the Baron de Kalb, with his 
fifty-five years, and the Viscount de Maury (who 
rode out of Bordeaux as a grand gentleman while 
the disguised Lafayette went before as courier), 
there was Major de Gimat, first aid-de-camp to 
Lafayette and always his special favorite, who 
gave up his horse to his young commander, thereby 
saving his Hfe at the battle of Brandywine, and 
who was wounded in an attack on a redoubt at 
Yorktown. Then there was Captain de la Co- 
lombe who, after the close of the war in America, 
pursued closely the fortunes of Lafayette, follow- 
ing him even into prison. There was Colonel de 



44 LAFAYETTE 

Valfort who, in later years, became an instructor 
of Napoleon ; and Major de Buysson who was at 
the battle of Camden and brought word of the 
eleven wounds that were needed to cause the death 
of the intrepid Baron de Kalb. The list included 
still other names of members of noble famiHes in 
France. 

Something was indeed happening to the youth 
of France in 1750 and 1760. A restless ardor, a 
love of adventure, a love of glory, together with 
the bewitchment of that beautiful word "Hberty," 
were among the motives that inspired their actions. 
They went into the military service at fourteen or 
even earlier, and were colonels of regiments at 
twenty-two or twenty-four. They were "sick for 
breathing and exploit. '^ 

An amusing story is told of one of these adven- 
turous boys. He got into a quarrel with a school- 
mate about the real positions of the Athenians and 
Persians at the battle of Plataea. He even made a 
small wager on it and then set out to find whether 
he had been right or not. He actually went on 
foot to Marseilles and from there sailed as cabin- 
boy to Greece, Alexandria, and Constantinople. 
There a French ambassador caught the young 
investigator and sent him home ! Before he was 
twenty-four, however, he was in America, cover- 



FIRST DAYS IN AMERICA 45 

ing himself with glory at Germantown and at Red 
Bank. This was the kind of youths they were; 
and many thrilUng stories could be told about the 
lives of these gallant young Frenchmen. 

And how young they were ! More than a hun- 
dred of the French ofhcers who came to America 
to serve in the Revolution were in the early twen- 
ties. There were a few seasoned old warriors, of 
course, but the majority of them were young. 
Such were the companions-in-arms of Lafayette, 
himself still in his teens. 

Lafayette's voyage was not without adventure. 
He had a heavy ship with but two inferior cannon 
and a few guns — he could not have escaped from 
the smallest privateer. But should they be at- 
tacked, he resolved to blow up the ship rather than 
surrender. When they had gone some forty leagues, 
they met a small ship. The captain turned pale ; 
but the crew were now much attached to Lafayette 
and had great confidence in him, and the officers 
were numerous. They made a show of resistance ; 
but it proved to be only a friendly American ship. 
As they proceeded on their way, Lafayette 
noticed that the captain was not keeping the boat 
due west. He commanded that the point aimed 
for should be Charleston, South Carolina. The 
man was evidently turning southward toward the 



46 LAFAYETTE 

West Indies, this being the sea-crossing lane at 
that time. Lafayette soon found out that the 
captain had smuggled aboard a cargo which he in- 
tended to sell in a southern port. Only by prom- 
ising to pay the captain the large sum he would 
have made by that bargain did Lafayette succeed 
in getting him to sail directly to the coast of the 
colonies. 

After a seven weeks' voyage the coast was near. 
Unfortunately, it swarmed with hostile EngHsh 
vessels, but after sailing for several days along the 
shore, Lafayette met with an extraordinary piece 
of good fortune. A sudden gale of wind blew away 
the frigates for a short time, and his vessel passed 
without encountering either friend or foe. 

They were now near Charleston; but in order 
to reach the harbor they were obliged to go ashore 
in the ship's yawl to inquire their way and if pos- 
sible to find a pilot. Lafayette took with him in 
the small boat the Baron de Kalb, Mr. Price, an 
American, the Chevalier de Buysson, and some of 
the other officers, together with seven men to row. 
Night came on as they were making toward a light 
they saw on shore. At last a voice called out to 
them. They answered, telling who they were 
and asking for a night's shelter. They were 
cordially invited to come ashore and into a house, 



FIRST DAYS IN AMERICA 47 

where they were received with great hospitality 
by the owner. They found themselves in the 
summer residence of Major Benjamin Huger 
(pronounced as if spelled Eugee), member of a 
notable Carolina family having French Huguenot 
antecedents, who, when he learned the purpose of 
the visitors, did everything in his power to make 
them comfortable and to further them on their 
way. 

It was one of the curious coincidences that make 
up so large a part of the story of Lafayette's Hfe 
that the first family to meet him on his arrival in 
this country had in its circle a small child who, 
when he grew up, was to take upon himself the 
dangerous task of rescuing Lafayette from the 
prison in which he was unjustly immured. That 
story will be told in its proper place. 

Lafayette was soon in Charleston, making 
preparations for the long journey to Philadelphia, 
where Congress was in session at that time. He 
was charmed with everything he found. 

The Chevalier de Buysson has left us a descrip- 
tion of the uncomfortable journey to Philadelphia. 
The procession was as follows : first came one of 
Lafayette's companions in hussar uniform; next, 
Lafayette's carriage — a clumsy contrivance which 
was a sort of covered sofa on four springs ; at the 



48 LAFAYETTE 

side one of his servants rode as a squire. The 
Baron de Kalb occupied the carriage with Lafay- 
ette. Two colonels, Lafayette's counselors, rode 
in a second carriage ; the third was for the aids, 
the fourth for the luggage, and the rear was brought 
up by a negro on horseback. By the time they had 
traveled four days, the bad roads had reduced the 
carriages to splinters, the horses gave out, and buy- 
ing others took all the ready money. After that 
the party traveled on foot, often sleeping in the 
woods. They were almost dead with hunger; 
they were exhausted with the heat; several were 
suffering from fever. After thirty days of this 
discouraging travel, they at last reached Philadel- 
phia. 

No campaign in Europe, declared De Buysson, 
could have been more difficult than this journey; 
but, he said, they were encouraged by the bright 
prospects of the reception they would surely have 
when they reached Philadelphia. All were ani- 
mated by the same spirit, he said, and added, 
''The enthusiasm of Lafayette would have in- 
cited all the rest of us if any one had been less 
courageous than he." 

But the reception of these wayworn strangers 
at the seat of government proved to be rather 
dubious. It appeared that at this time Congress 



FIRST DAYS IN AMERICA 49 

was being bothered by many applications from 
foreigners who demanded high rank in the Ameri- 
can army. The Committee of Foreign Affairs, 
being practical men of business, looked askance 
at men who traveled three thousand miles to help 
an unknown people ; they did not wholly beheve 
in the disinterested motives of the strangers ; and 
they allowed Lafayette and his French officers to 
trail from office to office, presenting their cre- 
dentials to inattentive ears. 

Finally that sense of power which always buoyed 
Lafayette's spirit in critical moments came to his 
rescue. He determined to gain a hearing. He 
wrote to Congress a letter in which he said :^ 

''After the sacrifices that I have made in this 
cause, I have the right to ask two favors at your 
hands ; one is that I may serve without pay, at 
my own expense ; and the other is that I may be 
allowed to serve at first as a volunteer." 

Congress was clear-sighted enough to recognize 
in this letter a spirit quite different from that which 
had seemed to actuate some of the foreign aspirants 
for glory. And by this time they had received 
an informing letter from Silas Deane; so they 
hastened to pass a resolution (on July 31, 177?) 
accepting Lafayette's services and "in consider- 
ation of his zeal, illustrious family, and connec- 



50 LAFAYETTE 

tions," they bestowed on him the rank of Majoi 
General in the Army of the United States. 

The second letter with its royal command from 
Louis XVI might now follow, but it could have no 
effect. Lafayette was definitely committed to the 
American cause to which, as he said in his answer 
to Congress, the feelings of his heart had engaged 
him; a cause whose import concerned the honor, 
virtue, and universal happiness of mankind, as 
well as being one that drew from him the warmest 
affection for a nation who, by its resistance of tyr- 
anny, exhibited to the universe so fine an example 
of justice and courage. 

Lafayette's letter to Congress asked that he 
might be placed as near to General Washington as 
possible and serve under his command. 

A day or two after this a military dinner was 
given in Philadelphia which was attended by Gen- 
eral Washington. Lafayette also was invited. 
That was Lafayette's first introduction to Wash- 
ington. Lafayette had admired Washington al- 
most from the time he first heard his name. To 
the young Frenchman, the occasion was momen- 
tous. He now saw before him a man whose face 
was somewhat grave and serious yet not stern. 
On the contrary, it was softened by a most gracious 
and amiable smile. He observed that the Gen- 



FIRST DAYS IN AMERICA 51 

eral was affable in manner and that he conversed 
with his officers familiarly and gayly. General 
Washington, with his customary prudence, looked 
closely at the nineteen-year-old volunteer, and 
wondered whether the stuff was to be found in 
that slight figure and intent gaze that would make 
a helper of value to the colonies, one whose judg- 
ment and loyalty could be rehed upon. It must 
be that his decision was favorable to the youth, for 
after the dinner he drew him aside and conversed 
with him in the friendliest way. He spoke with 
him of his plans and aspirations, showed that he 
appreciated Lafayette's sacrifices, and that he 
realized the greatness of the effort he had made 
in order to bring aid to the colonies. Then Wash- 
ington invited him to become one of his military 
family, which offer Lafayette accepted with the 
same frankness with which it was made. 

Perhaps Lafayette was in a mood to be pleased, 
for in spite of the assailing mosquitoes at night 
and the many difficulties he had to overcome, 
everything he saw in America gave him great 
satisfaction. 



CHAPTER VI 
Lafayette at the Brandywine 

When Lafayette joined the army at Washing- 
ton's headquarters, a few miles north of Philadel- 
phia, he was very much surprised by what he saw. 
Instead of the ample proportions and regular sys- 
tem of European encampments, with the glitter and 
finish of their appointments; instead of feather- 
trimmed hats and violet-colored facings, with 
marching and countermarching in the precision 
and grace of a minuet, he saw a small army of eleven 
thousand men, poorly clad, with nothing that could 
by the utmost courtesy be called a uniform, and 
woefully lacking in knowledge of military tactics. 

But Lafayette had on his rose-colored spec- 
tacles. The pitiful condition of the American 
soldiers awakened nothing but sympathy in his 
heart — never any contempt. In spite of their 
disadvantages, he perceived that they had in them 
the making of fine soldiers, and that they were 
being led by zealous officers. 

52 



LAFAYETTE AT THE BRAND YWINE 53 

Lafayette, now a major general in the American 
army, attended the councils of war and stood 
by Washington when he reviewed the troops. 
When the General took occasion to speak rather 
apologetically of the deficiencies in his little army, 
suggesting that Lafayette must feel the difference 
between these untrained soldiers and those he was 
accustomed to see, Lafayette had the self-posses- 
sion and tact to answer that he had come to Amer- 
ica to learn, not to teach. This answer charmed 
Washington and endeared the young French 
officer to the whole army. 

Washington, having heard that an English 
fleet was coming up Chesapeake Bay, moved south 
to meet the portentous army that he knew would 
promptly be debarked. On their way south the 
American troops had to pass through the city of 
Philadelphia. In view of the dark forebodings 
that the approach of the English was causing in 
the minds of the people, Washington was desirous 
that the soldiers should make as fine an appear- 
ance as possible in passing through the city, and 
made special regulations for that day. The army 
was to march in one column through the city ; the 
order of divisions was stated ; each officer without 
exception was to keep his post with a certain 
space between, no more and no less ; each brigadier 



54 LAFAYETTE 

was to appoint patrols to arrest stragglers from the 
camp and all others of the army who did not obey 
this order; the drums and fifes of each brigade 
were to be collected in the center of it, and a tune 
for the quickstep was to be played; but it must 
be played with such moderation that the men 
could keep step to it with ease. 

An army that needed admonitions like these 
could still awaken enthusiasm from spectators. 
The austere commander in chief looked very 
handsome as he passed; the slim, eager-eyed 
French major general rode at his side; every 
window shone with curious and admiring eyes 
and the sidewalks were crowded with applauding 
citizens. The men could not help catching the 
spirit of the occasion; each soldier stuck a sprig 
of green in his hat to make up as far as possible 
for the lack of fine uniforms and military brilliancy. 

They were on their way to the place which was 
to be the scene of the battle of Brandywine, one 
of the most disastrous defeats of the Revolution. 
At the head of Chesapeake Bay the English had 
landed a large and finely equipped army, and from 
that point they threatened Philadelphia. Wash- 
ington, with an inferior and poorly furnished force, 
placed his army in form to receive the attack 
at the Birmingham meetinghouse near Chad's 



LAFAYETTE AT THE BRANDYWINE 55 

Ford on Brandywine Creek, a point about fifty 
miles south of Philadelphia. 

Lafayette accompanied General Washington to 
the battle. His rank of major general gave him 
no command. Practically, he was a volunteer. 
But when he saw that the American troops were 
in danger of defeat before the superior English 
force, he asked to be allowed to go to the front. 
He plunged into the midst of the panic that followed 
the failure of the American line to stand up before 
the galling fire of the well-trained British soldiers. 
The retreat was rapidly becoming a panic. At 
this point Lafayette sprang from his horse and 
rushed in among the soldiers ; by starting forward 
in the very face of the enemy and calling the dis- 
organized men to follow, he did all in his power to 
induce the men to form and make a stand. It was 
impossible. The odds were too great against the 
Americans. Lafayette and the other generals 
waited until the British were within twenty yards 
of them before they retired. 

But at the height of the confusion, when Lafay- 
ette was too excited to notice it, a musket ball 
struck his left leg just below the knee. Of this 
he was unconscious until one of the generals called 
his attention to the fact that blood was running 
over the top of his boot. Lafayette was helped 



56 LAFAYETTE 

to remount his horse by his faithful aid, Major de 
Gimat, and insisted on remaining with the troops 
until the loss of blood made him too weak to go 
further. Then he stopped long enough to have a 
bandage placed on his leg. 

Night was coming on. The American troops 
were going pellmell up the road toward Chester. 
There was horrible confusion, and darkness was 
coming on. At a bridge just south of Chester, 
the American soldiers were at the point of complete 
disorganization. Seeing the great need for some 
decisive mind to bring order out of this chaos, 
Lafayette made a stand and placed guards along 
the road. Finally Washington came up and made 
Lafayette give himself into the hands of the sur- 
geons. At midnight Washington wrote to Con- 
gress, and in his letter he praised the bravery of 
the young French soldier. Lafayette had passed 
his twentieth birthday but four days before. 

General Washington was happy to have this 
French officer proved by test of battle and to find 
his favorable judgment more than warranted. 
He showed the most tender solicitude for his young 
friend and gave him into the care of the surgeons 
with instructions to do all in their power for him, 
and to treat him as if he were his own son. 

Lafayette's spirits were not in the least dashed. 



LAFAYETTE AT THE BRANDYWINE 57 

When the doctors gathered round to stanch the 
blood, expressing their apprehensions for his 
safety, he looked at the wound and pluckily ex- 
claimed, 

"Never mind, gentlemen; I would not take 
fifteen hundred guineas for that." 

It was partly this buoyant, merry spirit that 
made Lafayette win all hearts. To the army he 
was now no stranger. His broken English was 
becoming more and more understandable. But 
words were not necessary; the look in his eyes 
said that he was a fearless and sincere man ; that 
he had not come to this country to "show off,'' 
but from a true love for the principles for which 
he had offered his sword. Never was there a more 
complete adoption than that of Lafayette by the 
American army. 

Lafayette's first care on reaching Philadelphia 
was to write to Adrienne lest she should receive 
exaggerated news concerning his wound. 

"It was a mere trifle," he wrote. "All I fear is 
that you should not have received my letter. As 
General Howe is giving in the meantime rather 
pompous details of his American exploits to the 
king his master, if he should write word that I 
am wounded, he may also write word that I am 
killed, which would not cost him anything; but 



58 LAFAYETTE 

I hope that my friends, and you especially, will 
not give faith to reports of those persons who 
last year dared to publish that General Washing- 
ton and all the general officers of his army, be- 
ing in a boat together, had been upset and every 
individual drowned." 

Years afterwards when Lafayette, then an el- 
derly man, revisited our country, he referred to 
his wound in these gracious words: ^'The honor 
to have mingled my blood with that of many other 
American soldiers on the heights of the Brandy- 
wine has been to me a source of pride and delight." 

After a few days it was thought wise to take the 
wounded Lafayette to a quieter place. So Henry 
Laurens, the President of Congress, who happened 
to be passing on his way to York, Pennsylvania, 
whither Congress had removed, took him in his 
traveling carriage to Bethlehem, where dwelt a 
community of Moravians, in whose gentle care 
Lafayette was left for the four wearisome weeks 
of convalescence. 

^'Be perfectly at ease about me," he wrote Adri- 
enne. ^'AJl the faculty in America are engaged 
in my service. I have a friend who has spoken 
to them in such a manner that I am certain of being 
well attended to ; that friend is General Washing- 
ton. This excellent man, whose talents and vir- 



LAFAYETTE AT THE BRANDYWINE 59 

tues I admired, and whom I have learned to re- 
vere as I have come to know him better, has now 
become my intimate friend; his affectionate in- 
terest in me instantly won my heart. I am es- 
tablished in his house and we live together like 
two attached brothers with mutual confidence and 
cordiality." 

Again Lafayette writes : ^* Our General is a man 
formed in truth for this revolution, which could 
not have been accomplished without him. I see 
him more intimately than any other man, and I 
see that he is worthy of the adoration of his coun- 
try. . . . His name will be revered in every age 
by all true lovers of liberty and humanity." 

At last Lafayette was well enough to go into 
service again. He requested permission this time 
to join General Greene who was making an ex- 
pedition into New Jersey in the hope of crippling 
the force of Lord Cornwallis. Lafayette was given 
command of a detachment of three hundred men, 
and with these he reconnoitered a situation Lord 
Cornwallis was holding at Gloucester opposite 
Philadelphia. Here he came so near to the English 
that he could plainly see them carrying provisions 
across the river to aid in the projected taking of 
the city, and he so heedlessly exposed himself to 
danger that he might easily have been shot or im- 



6o LAFAYETTE 

prisoned if the English had been alert. By urgent 
entreaty he was called back. After gaining this 
information, he met a detachment of Hessians in 
the service of the British army, and though they 
numbered more than his own detachment, he suc- 
ceeded in driving them back. In the management 
of this enterprise he showed great skill, both in the 
vigor of his attack and in the caution of his return. 
He took twenty prisoners. General Greene, in 
reporting to Washington, said that Lafayette 
seemed determined to be found in the way of 
danger. 

General Washington was now convinced that 
the titled volunteer could be trusted with a com- 
mand. He wrote to Congress as follows : 

^'It is my opinion that the command of troops 
in that state cannot be in better hands than the 
Marquis's. He possesses uncommon military tal- 
ents; is of a quick and sound judgment; perse- 
vering and enterprising, without rashness; and 
besides these, he is of a conciHating temper and 
perfectly sober, — which are quaHties that rarely 
combine in the same person. And were I to add 
that some men will gain as much experience in the 
course of three or four years as some others will 
in ten or a dozen, you cannot deny the fact and 
attack me on that ground." 



LAFAYETTE AT THE BRAND YWINE 6i 

On this recommendation, Lafayette was ap- 
pointed to the command of a division composed 
entirely of Virginians. Needless to say he was 
overjoyed; for though the division was weak in 
point of numbers, and in a state of destitution as 
to clothing, he was promised cloth for uniforms 
and he hoped to have recruits of whom he could 
make soldiers. 

When Lafayette enlisted in the American army, 
he was not to lack for companionship. John 
Laurens had come from his study of history and 
military tactics at Geneva and, leaving his young 
wife and child behind, even as Lafayette had done, 
had rushed home to serve his country in her need. 
Alexander Hamilton was now both miHtary aid 
and trusted adviser and secretary to General 
Washington. These three young men, all boys at 
the same time in different quarters of the globe, 
had come together while still in early youth and 
were entering into the great work of the American 
Revolution. 



CHAPTER VII 
A Successful Failure 

It was on the 20th of December that Lafayette 
received the joyful news of the birth of a second 
daughter. She was named Anastasie. The whole 
camp shared in the happiness of the young father. 
In fact, the affairs of the young hero interested 
everybody so much that there was indeed some 
danger that he would be spoiled. And he certainly 
would have been but for the balance of good judg- 
ment and mental poise that offset youthful rash- 
ness and vanity. 

At about the same time, in a long letter to his 
father-in-law, he explained the course of action he 
had marked out for himself. He said: '*I read, 
I study, I examine, I listen, I reflect ; and the result 
of all is the endeavor at forming an opinion into 
which I infuse as much common sense as possible. 
I will not talk much, for fear of saying foolish 
things ; for I am not disposed to abuse the confidence 
which the Americans have kindly placed in me." 

63 



A SUCCESSFUL FAILURE 63 

This was Lafayette's real spirit and his secret 
counsel to himself; and we can but wonder that 
a young man so impetuous, so enthusiastic, one 
who had had the courage to start out on this haz- 
ardous enterprise, should have combined with those 
quahties so cool and steady a judgment and so rigid 
a self-control. But it was just this combination of 
qualities that led Lafayette on to his successes. 

There was, however, severe discipline in store 
for him. His strength of purpose was to be put 
to a sharp test. This came about in two ways : 
first, in the stern ordeal of the winter at Valley 
Forge, and afterwards in the expedition into the 
wilderness north of Albany. 

Everybody knows what the hardships of the 
American army were in those dark days of the 
Revolution, the winter of 1777-78. Washington 
had suffered defeat and disaster; but he, Hke 
his faithful followers, was of the temper that could 
not be depressed. At Valley Forge the men built 
a city of wooden huts, and these afforded at least 
a shelter from the storms, though they were scarcely 
better than dungeons. Their sufferings were 
terrible. They were inadequately clothed; many 
had neither coats, hats, shirts, nor shoes; they 
were in want of food; illness followed. Many 
had to have feet or legs amputated because of 



64 LAFAYETTE 

the effects of freezing. Lafayette had to see all 
this, and to him their patient endurance seemed 
nothing short of miraculous. 

He even tried to make merry a little over their 
sad situation, and over the nearness of the British 
army, for he wrote to his wife, '^I cannot tell 
whether it will be convenient for General Howe 
to make us a visit in our new settlement ; but we 
shall try to receive him with proper consideration 
if he does." 

For the moment the American cause was under 
a cloud. Should Lafayette return to France now ? 
If he did, this would have been the interpretation 
of his act — he had lost faith in the American un- 
dertaking. This belief would have been heralded 
throughout the British army and would soon have 
been echoed in France. Lafayette did not wish 
to shoulder the responsibiHty of the effect his 
withdrawal might have on the hopes of help from 
French sympathy and French resources, and on 
the determination of other recruits who might 
come over and bring aid. He decided to remain 
with Washington and the American army and 
share whatever fate might be theirs. So Lafayette 
courageously remained. Accustomed to a Ufe of 
luxury, he nevertheless adapted himself at once to 
the melancholy conditions at Valley Forge. 



A SUCCESSFUL FAILURE 65 

There was a strange surprise awaiting Lafayette 
when he came to know the American situation 
more intimately. Before he left Europe, his 
sincere mind had clothed the cause of liberty in 
this country in the most rosy colors. He thought 
that here almost every man was a lover of liberty 
who would rather die free than live a slave. Before 
leaving France he thought that all good Americans 
were united in one mind, and that confidence in 
the commander in chief was universal and un- 
bounded; he now believed that if Washington 
were lost to America, the Revolution would not 
survive six months. He found that there were 
open dissensions in Congress; that there were 
parties who hated one another ; people were criti- 
cizing without knowing anything about war 
methods; and there were many small jealousies. 
All this disheartened him greatly; he felt that 
it would be disastrous if slavery, dishonor, ruin, and 
the unhappiness of a whole world should result 
from trifling differences between a few jealous- 
minded men. 

After a time the disaffected ones in the army 
tried to win Lafayette from his close allegiance to 
Washington. They entertained him with ideas of 
glory and shining projects — a clever way to entice 
him into their schemes. Deceived for a time, he 



66 LAFAYETTE 

received their proffers of friendship and their 
flattering compliments, but when he noted that 
some of them were able to speak slightingly and even 
disrespectfully of the commander in chief, he dashed 
the temptation away with absolute contempt. 

Filled with the desire to ward off all possible 
peril from an influence which he knew would dis- 
rupt the American cause, he impetuously started 
in to help. He sought an interview with Wash- 
ington, but not finding an early opportunity for 
this, he wrote him a long and noble letter which 
has been preserved. In it he said : 

*' I am now fixed to your fate, and I shall follow 
it and sustain it by my sword as by all means in 
my power. You will pardon my importunity in 
favor of the sentiment which dictated it. Youth 
and friendship make me, perhaps, too warm, but 
I feel the greatest concern at all that has happened 
for some time since." 

In answer to this impulsive and true-hearted 
letter, General Washington wrote one of the most 
distinctive and characteristic of all the hundreds 
of letters of his that are preserved. He said : 

*'Your letter of yesterday conveyed to me fresh 
proof of that friendship and attachment which I 
have happily experienced since the first of our 
acquaintance and for which I entertain sentiments 



A SUCCESSFUL FAILURE 67 

of the purest affection. It will ever constitute 
part of my happiness to know that I stand well in 
your opinion because I am satisJ&ed that you can 
have no views to answer by throwing out false 
colors, and that you possess a mind too exalted to 
condescend to low arts and intrigues to acquire a 
reputation." 

It must have been welcome to the harassed heart 
of the man who stood at the head of so great a 
cause to receive the proofs of this young man's 
friendship and of his absolutely loyal support. 
Washington closed the letter with these gracious 
and inspiriting words : 

"Happy, thrice happy, would it have been for 
this army, and for the cause we are embarked in, 
if the same generous spirit had pervaded all the 
actors in it. . . . But we must not, in so great a 
contest, expect to meet with nothing but sunshine. 
I have no doubt that everything happens for the 
best, that we shall triumph over all our misfortunes, 
and in the end be happy ; when, my dear Marquis, 
if you will give me your company in Virginia, we 
will laugh at our past difficulties and the folly 
of others ; and I will endeavor, by every civiHty 
in my power, to show you how much and how sin- 
cerely I am your affectionate and obedient serv- 
ant." 



68 L.\FAYETTE 

The political conspiracy developed into what 
is known in history as the "Cabal." Thwarted 
in their attempt to draw into their interests 
the man whose importance to them, as represent- 
ing in an unofficial way the French influence in 
America, was fully appreciated, they hatched 
a scheme that should remove him from the side 
and from the influence of Washington. This 
scheme consisted of a project on paper to send an 
expedition into Canada, in order to win the people 
there to join the American revolt, if possible to do 
so, by persuasion or by force. The plan had many 
features that appealed to Lafayette. 

The conspirators of the Cabal had carried a 
measure in Congress to give Lafayette the promise 
of an independent command, and the commission 
for this was inclosed to General Washington. 
He handed it to the major general, who had so 
lately joined the army as a volunteer, with the 
simple words, "I would rather they had selected 
you for this than any other man." 

But Lafayette loyally put aside the tempting 
prospect of winning personal glory in the Old 
World and the New by this expedition, and de- 
clined to receive any commission from Congress 
that would make him independent of Washington. 
He would serve only as a subordinate of the com- 



A SUCCESSFUL FAILURE 69 

mander in chief, as one detailed for special duties. 
He wished to be called '^ General and Commander 
of the Northern Army," not commander in chief. 
Congress accepted the condition. 

It was in this way, then, that Lafayette received 
the title of '' General," a distinction that he valued 
more than that of Marquis, and that to the end 
of his days he preferred above all other titles. 

With characteristic enthusiasm Lafayette pro- 
ceeded to York, where Congress was then assembled, 
and where the members of the conspiracy were 
living in comfort that contrasted curiously with 
the conditions surrounding General Washington at 
Valley Forge. At a dinner given while Lafayette 
was there, the northern expedition and Lafayette^s 
briUiant prospects were made themes of praise. 
But Lafayette missed one name from the list of 
toasts ; at the end of the dinner he arose and, call- 
ing attention to the omission, he proposed the 
name of the commander in chief. In silence 
the men drank the toast ; they had learned by this 
time that the young French noble was made of 
unmanageable material. 

With a heart, however, for any fate, Lafayette 
started on the long, wearisome journey northward. 
There were rivers deep and swift to cross ; the roads 
were bad and the wintry storms made them worse. 



70 LAFAYETTE 

Floating ice crowded the fords. Rain and hail and ' 
snow and slush made up a disheartening monotony. 

It certainly was dismal. On his way north the 
young general was made happy, however, by re- 
ceiving a ''sweet parcel of letters," telling him that 
his family were very well and that they were keep- 
ing in loving remembrance the man who was called 
in France, ''The American Enthusiast." This 
warmed his heart as he plodded northward through 
the storm. 

On Lafayette^s arrival at Albany, he found that 
none of the promises made to him as to supplies, 
available men, money, and other necessary equip- 
ment had been kept ; and the judgment of advis- 
ers who knew the difficulties of a northern excursion 
in the depth of winter was against the expedition. 
Lafayette was exasperated and wrote frantic letters 
to Washington, to Congress, and to Henry Laurens. 

But it was of no avail. The expedition had to 
be given up. Lafayette remained at Albany dur- 
ing the months of February and March, giving his 
personal credit to pay many of the men. and to 
satisfy other demands, and taking up various 
duties and projects. For one thing, he went up 
the Mohawk River to attend a large council of the 
Iroquois Indians. This was Lafayette's first offi- 
cial contact with the red men, and he at once mani- 



A SUCCESSFUL FAILURE 71 

fested a friendship for them and an understanding 
of their nature that won their hearts. He sent 
one of his French engineers to build a fort for the 
Oneidas, and he was present at a grand treaty 
ceremony. A band of Iroquois braves followed 
Lafayette southward and later formed part of a 
division under his command. 

It was a discomfited but not a despairing young 
warrior who returned in April to Valley Forge. 
But joy was before him. The Cabal had vanished 
before the storm of loyalty to Washington that 
gathered when the conspiracy was discovered. 
Moreover, Lafayette received from Congress a 
testimonial, saying that they entertained a high 
sense of his prudence, his activity, and his zeal, 
and they believed that nothing would have been 
wanting on his part, or on the part of the officers 
who accompanied him, to give the expedition the 
utmost possible effect, if Congress had not thought 
it impracticable to prosecute it further. Better 
still, on the 2d of May came the great news that 
a treaty of commerce and alliance had been signed 
between France and the United States of America. 

This event caused a wild wave of joy to spread 
over the whole country. This treaty assured the 
permanence of the United States as a nation. 
To be sure, the war with England must still be 



72 LAFAYETTE 

carried on, but now that France was an ally they 
would have more hope and courage. 

In the doleful camp at Valley Forge there was 
the sincerest gratification and delight. A national 
salute of thirteen cannon was ordered ; a thanks- 
giving sermon was preached ; a fine dinner was 
served for the officers, and the table was made 
more delightful by the presence of Mrs. Wash- 
ington, Lady Stirling, Mrs. Greene, and other 
wives and daughters of generals. 

Lafayette took part in these scenes of rejoicing, 
but there was a reason why, underneath it all, his 
heart was heavy. Almost with the letters an- 
nouncing the joyous news of the treaty, came others 
telling him of the death, in October, 1777, of his 
little daughter Henriette, of whom he had said 
that he hoped their relationship would be more that 
of friends than of parent and child. This happi- 
ness was not to be theirs. Lafayette now thought 
that he had never realized before what it meant to 
be so far away from his home. The thought of 
Henriette and of the grief of Adrienne, which he 
was not able by his presence to help assuage, 
was with him every moment of the day ; but even 
while his heart was heavy with grief, he felt that 
he must attend and bear his part in the public 
rejoicings. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Lafayette at Monmouth 

The alliance with France put a new color upon 
every phase of the American contest. If, for 
instance, a French fleet should be already on its 
way across the Atlantic, and should enter Chesa- 
peake Bay and threaten Philadelphia, the Eng- 
lish would have to evacuate that city and retire 
to New York, risking the danger of being inter- 
cepted on the way by Washington's army. In 
view of such a possibility as this, the commander 
in chief of the American army held a council of 
war in which it was decided that they were not 
strong enough to risk a decisive engagement. 
It was, however, highly important that exact in- 
formation should be gained as to the movements 
of the British around Philadelphia. In order 
that this might be accomplished. General Wash- 
ington detached a group of soldiery from among 
the most able and valued of his army, and put 
them under Lafayette, with instructions to pro- 

73 



74 LAFAYETTE 

ceed into the country between the Delaware and 
Schuylkill, and there interrupt communications _ 
with Philadelphia, obstruct the incursions of the f 
enemy's parties, and obtain intelligence of their 
motives and designs. 

Lafayette was overjoyed at being chosen for so 
important a charge; and on the 24th of May, 
1778, he started out with about twenty-two hun- 
dred men. His force included the band of Iroquois 
warriors who had come from Albany to follow 
his fortunes, and who, because of their knowledge 
of forest-craft, were invaluable as scouts. The 
British could command about four times as many 
soldiers as had been assigned to Lafayette, but 
their intention was to keep the American force out 
of their way and, if possible, to avoid a direct 
encounter. 

For his camp Lafayette selected a piece of ris- 
ing ground near the eleventh milestone north of 
Philadelphia, where there was a church, a grave- 
yard, and a few stone houses that might afford 
some protection in case of attack, and where four 
country roads led out to the four points of the 
compass. The place was called Barren Hill — 
name of ill-omen ! But the fate of the day proved 
not altogether unfortunate for the young and in- 
trepid commander. 



LAFAYETTE AT MONMOUTH 75 

Naturally, the people in Philadelphia had heard 
of the approach of the young French noble whose 
fame had been ringing in their ears, and they pre- 
pared to go out and engage him — capture him, 
if possible. At that time they were indulging in 
a grand, week-long festival, with masquerades, 
dancing, and fireworks ; and in anticipation of the 
quick capture of the young French hero, a special 
party was invited for the next evening at which 
the guests were promised the pleasure of meeting 
the distinguished prisoner. 

Lafayette had chosen his position in a region he 
had carefully examined. But the English were 
able to send bodies of troops up all the traveled 
approaches to the hill. While Lafayette was 
planning to send a spy to Philadelphia to find out, 
as Washington had directed, what preparations 
were there being made, the cry suddenly arose 
in his camp that they were being surrounded. 
It was a terrible moment. But Lafayette had 
this great quality — the power of being self-pos- 
sessed under sudden danger. He did not lose his 
head, and he instantly thought of a plan of escape. 

There was a dilapidated road that his keen eye 
had detected leading along beneath a high bank 
which protected it from observation. He directed 
the main body of his men to pass down that old 



76 LAFAYETTE 

road, while a small number were commanded to 
make a pretense of a demonstration near the 
church; others were to show some false heads of 
columns along the edge of the forest by the stone 
houses. These were withdrawn as the main body 
of soldiers disappeared down the hidden road and 
began to dot the surface of the river with their 
bobbing heads as they swam across. Lafayette 
and his loyal aid-de-camp, Major de Gimat, 
brought up the rear with the remainder of the men, 
whom they transferred across the river without 
loss. Then they formed on the farther bank and 
determined to contest the ford if the British fol- 
lowed. But the British had marched up the hill 
from the two opposite sides, simply meeting each 
other at the top ; they then marched down again 
and did not seem to be in any mind to pursue their 
enemy further. 

The only real encounter of that serio-comic day's 
adventures took place between the band of Iroquois 
and a company of Hessians in the pay of the 
British. The Indians were concealed in the brush 
at the side of the road when the Hessians, with 
waving black plumes in their tall hats and mounted 
on spirited horses, came along. The Indians rose 
as if from under the ground, giving their war 
whoop as they sprang. The horses, unused to this 



LAFAYETTE AT MONMOUTH 77 

form of war cry, started back and fled far and 
wide ; and the Indians, never having seen soldiers 
so accoutered, were as frightened as if confronted 
by evil spirits, and swiftly made good their escape 
from the impending " bad medicine." 

The British carried their chagrin with them 
back to Philadelphia, and the diners were dis- 
appointed in their guest of honor. Next morning 
Lafayette returned to the top of Barren Hill, 
thence marched back to Valley Forge, and there 
relieved the anxiety of General Washington who 
had feared for his safety. 

But the incident of Barren Hill, while it was not 
in any way an engagement, must be looked upon 
as a serious matter after all, for it gave Lafayette 
an opportunity to show that he was cool and self- 
possessed in a critical moment, and that he was 
clever and resourceful in finding ways to extricate 
himseK from difficulties — both essential qualities 
in one who is to be trusted with great enterprises. 

In about a month the anticipated event took 
place — the British evacuated Philadelphia ; and, 
with a baggage-train eleven miles long, started 
northward with the intention of joining forces with 
the army at New York. 

The question now was whether the army under 
General Washington should leave Valley Forge 



78 LAFAYETTE 

and with their inferior force make an attempt to 
intercept the British and bring on a battle. Sev- 
eral councils of war were held ; one of special 
importance at Hopewell, a place north of Valley 
Forge, where the project of preparing for attack 
was earnestly favored by Lafayette, together with 
General Greene and Colonel Alexander Hamilton, 
but violently (and unaccountably at that time) 
opposed by General Lee. This council has been 
made the subject of one of the reHefs on the cele- 
brated Monmouth Battle Monument. In this 
design Washington is represented as standing by 
the table in the center of the group, while Lafayette 
is spreading the map before the council and urging 
them to make a strong demonstration against the 
British, even if it should bring on a battle. 

The various generals sit about the table and each 
expresses in his attitude what his feelings are in 
this crisis. Steuben and Duportail (at the extreme 
left) evidently agree with Lafayette, and eagerly 
press for compHance with his plan. General 
Patterson (seated at the table) is of the same mind, 
and so is the true-hearted Greene (seated at the 
right of Patterson). Brave Colonel Scammel (be- 
tween Washington and Lafayette), Washington's 
Adjutant General, carefully notes the opinion 
of each for the guidance of his chief. Back in the 




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LAFAYETTE AT MONMOUTH 79 

shadow sits the treacherous General Lee, who 
looks sulky and is evidently planning mischief. 
The homely rooftree covers a critical scene in the 
history of the Revolution. 

Finally, Washington turned to General Wayne 
(behind Greene) and said, 

''Well, General, what would you do?" 

"Fight, Sir!" crisply replied the ardent and 
indomitable Wayne — an answer that pleased 
alike the commander in chief and the young 
volunteer major general, to whom it seemed an 
intolerable insult that a hostile army should be 
allowed to march through one's own country 
unchallenged. 

General Lee was determined that the British 
should be allowed to pass through New Jersey 
without molestation. His sympathies were after- 
wards found to have been entirely with the British. 
At any rate, Washington did not follow his advice. 
He sent out men to fell trees in the enemy's path, 
to burn bridges before them, and to harass them 
as much as possible; and he forwarded detach- 
ments of such size that he needed a major general 
to take command of that branch of his army. The 
position was offered first to General Lee. He re- 
fused to take it. General Washington was then free 
to offer it to Lafayette, who accepted it with delight. 



8o LAFAYETTE 

As these plans were being matured, General 
Lee suddenly changed his mind and announced 
that he would take command of the advance 
force; and he appealed to Lafayette's generosity 
to allow him to do so, even after having once given 
his refusal. Lafayette unselfishly resigned the 
command. It is the opinion of historians that 
the outcome of the battle of Monmouth would 
have been very different if the American side had 
been left in the capable hands of the young La- 
fayette. 

The battle of Monmouth, which took place on 
the 28th of June, was widely scattered in its action 
over a hot and sandy plain. The outcome was 
that General Lee first brought his troops face to 
face with the enemy, and then, instead of leading 
on to the attack, gave the order for retreat. After- 
wards, in the court-martial of Lee, it was made 
evident that the movement of the troops as ordered 
by Lee would have left Lafayette and his detach- 
ment abandoned in an extremely exposed position 
on the open plain, the troops that should have 
supported him having been withdrawn by Lee's 
orders and directed to retreat. Lafayette and the 
other generals felt great bitterness on that day 
because they had been swept into battle but had 
not been allowed to strike a blow. 



LAFAYETTE AT MONMOUTH 8i 

Everybody knows how Washington rode up, and 
when he saw the retreat, how he indignantly re- 
proved General Lee and commanded the battalions 
to turn back and form in position for battle. 
Lafayette was in command of a division stationed 
at the second hne under Lord Stirling who sustained 
the left wing ; they were now placed on an eminence 
behind a morass and there played the batteries 
to such good effect that they were able to check 
the advance of the British. This halt gave Wash- 
ington time to place his army to advantage. The 
British were driven from a strong position they 
had taken, and before dark the American troops 
had turned the British back. That night they 
lay upon the field in bright moonhght, and while 
Washington and Lafayette discussed the possible 
outcome of the next day, the British were silently 
withdrawing from the Monmouth plains. The 
next morning all had disappeared except some 
forty of their wounded. At Sandy Hook, where the 
British army crossed to New York, it was learned 
that they had lost about two thousand men by 
desertions and by losses at Monmouth. Many 
of the soldiers on both sides had died from the 
extreme heat on that 28th of June. 

During the battle Lafayette was master of him- 
self. Almost fifty years later, Colonel Willett 



82 LAFAYETTE 

related that in the hottest of the fight he saw 
Lafayette ride up to one of the officers and, in a 
voice cool, steady, and slow, and with as much 
deliberation as if nothing exciting prevailed, say, 

"General, the enemy is making an attempt to 
cut off our right wing ; march to his assistance with 
all your force." 

So saying he galloped off. Colonel Willett 
remembered that he was exceedingly well mounted, 
though plainly dressed, and ''very sedate in his 
air for a Frenchman." 

A number of situations arose soon after 
this in which Lafayette found himself of great 
use. The P^ench fleet under Count D'Estaing 
appeared near Delaware Bay and sailed up the 
coast. Washington was at White Plains. The 
British held New York. It was thought that the 
French fleet could accompHsh much by going to 
Newport and there cooperating with the land forces. 
Lafayette was given a detachment and commanded 
to proceed to Providence where he was to stand 
ready to give all possible aid. 

But he was doomed to still another disappoint- 
ment. The French fleet arrived off Point Judith 
near Newport ; visits of ceremony were exchanged 
by the French and American generals; prepara- 
tions were made ; but through misunderstandings, 



LAFAYETTE AT MONMOUTH 83 

the plans never worked out to an actual engage- 
ment. Before anything was accompHshed, a se- 
vere storm overtook the fleet, and it withdrew to 
Boston for necessary repairs. 

During this trying time, Lafayette was a trusted 
resource to Washington, who devoutly wished to 
reconcile all differences and to bring peace out of 
dissension. For this Lafayette had peculiar quah- 
ties, as he understood the character of both the 
French and the Americans, and believed absolutely 
in the good intentions of the ofhcers on both sides. 
Twice he rode to Boston and back again to help 
in settUng some difficulty, making on one of those 
occasions a journey of seventy miles, at night, in 
six and a half hours — a feat paralleled only by 
Sheridan's famous ride to Winchester. 

But the fleet sailed away, bearing many disap- 
pointments with it, though much good had been 
done by its coming; it meant that the American 
cause had received definite encouragement from 
France. 

It was now October of 1778 and autumn weather 
was closing the campaign of the year. The send- 
ing of the French fleet to our shores had been vir- 
tually a declaration that a state of war existed 
between France and England, and the thought 
that this might develop into an actual war in which 



84 LAFAYETTE 

Lafayette, after his practical experience and train- 
ing in the Continental army, could take part and 
win glory, inclined him strongly at this point to 
return to his native land. Permission was given 
to him to do this. The proper farewells, official 
and private, were made, and Lafayette started 
on his way to Boston where he was to embark. 

But the strain of the summer's excitement and 
overwork had been too much for Lafayette, and 
at Fishkill he was taken ill with a violent fever 
which prostrated him for some weeks. The 
greatest concern was felt for his life ; the soldiers' 
love for him was shown by their great solicitude, 
and General Washington called upon him every 
day. 

Lafayette slowly recovered and finally resumed 
his journey to Boston, where he went on board the 
Alliance which the government had given him to 
take him to France. At the moment of sailing 
he sent a letter to General Washington in which 
he said : 

"Farewell, my dear General. I hope your 
French friends will ever be dear to you. I hope 
I shall soon see you again and tell you myself 
with what emotions I now leave the land you in- 
habit, and with what affection and respect I shall 
ever be your sincere friend." 



LAFAYETTE AT MONMOUTH 85 

They set sail for Havre on the nth of January, 
1779. The voyage was not to be without adven- 
ture. They sailed into the teeth of a terrible 
three days' storm. Lafayette, as usual, was very 
seasick, and, as usual, was much discouraged 
thereby. For a time glory and fame had no charms 
for him ! He declared he was surely going where 
he had wished to send all the English — namely, 
to the bottom of the sea ! 

Still worse was to follow. No sooner was the 
storm over than another danger loomed up. 
The ship's crew included a number of renegade 
Enghsh sailors who conspired to mutiny, to over- 
whelm the officers, and to kill the crew and pas- 
sengers. By including in their confidence an 
American sailor, whom they mistook for an Irish- 
man, their plot came to naught. Lafayette 
summoned the whole crew, put thirty-three muti- 
neers in chains, and thus saved himself from cap- 
ture and the ship from being towed into a British 
port as a prize. Shortly after this Lafayette 
brought the frigate into the harbor of Brest, where 
he had the pleasure of seeing, for the first time, 
the American flag receive the national salute as 
the symbol of an acknowledged sister nation in 
alliance with his native country. 



CHAPTER IX 

The Return to France 

When Lafayette learned of the birth of his 
little daughter Anastasie, whom he now ardently 
desired to see, he wrote to his wife : 

^'What expressions can my tenderness find 
sufficiently strong for our dear Anastasie? You 
will find them in your own heart, and in mine, 
which is equally open to you. . . . That poor 
little child must supply all that we have lost." 

Letters like this would give great consolation 
to Madame de Lafayette, but alas, they came at 
long intervals, since many of her husband's long 
epistles never reached her. Therefore Adrienne 
felt his absence the more keenly, while rumors 
and exaggerated reports from America made her 
days an agony. When, however, he returned to 
France in February, 1779, her happiness was 
beyond all expression. 

Adrienne's joy was increased by the fact that 
while her rash young husband had left his native 

86 



THE RETURN TO FRANCE 87 

land under a cloud, because it was understood that 
he did so against the command of the king, his 
return was that of a conqueror, triumphant and 
in favor. 

He was not allowed, however, wholly to forget 
his formal error. His appeal to Adrienne for 
forgiveness for his absence was one that he had to 
make to others. His father-in-law testified in a 
letter that, so far as he was concerned, the recreant 
might be freely forgiven. Adrienne was only too 
willing to receive the one who had left her to go on 
a mission to the other side of the world ; but what 
about the king whose command not to leave the 
shores of France he had practically disobeyed? 
Many a man had been shut up in the Bastille be- 
cause of a much smaller offense. 

Lafayette was brought to the court at Versailles 
by his relative, the Prince de Poix. The king 
received him and graciously accorded a punish- 
ment. He was to suffer imprisonment for the 
space of one week — his prison to be the grand 
residence of his father-in-law, the Hotel de Noailles ! 
After that his pardon was to be freely granted by 
his Majesty, with this warning — that he should 
avoid public places for a time lest the people should 
manifest their admiration for his disobedient con- 
duct by their applause. 



88 LAFAYETTE 

The king's warning was not indeed without 
reason. But there was no use in trying to keep the 
impressionable French people from worshiping 
a hero after their hearts had been captured by 
him. The gallantry and the human-heartedness 
of Lafayette, as well as the ideals he held — ideals 
that were becoming more and more captivating 
to the fancy and to the reason of the French na- 
tion — contributed to make him the favorite of 
the hour. A passage from a certain play never 
failed to receive enthusiastic applause from the 
audiences because it was held by all to be suscep- 
tible of direct appHcation to Lafayette; and this 
passage the queen copied in her own hand because 
she thought of him when she read it. It dwelt 
upon the union of mature and youthful qualities 
in a character, and ran as follows : 

" Why talk of youth 
When all the ripe experience of the old 
Dwells with him ? In his schemes profound and cool 
He acts with wise precaution, and reserves 
For times of action, his impetuous fire. 
To guard the camp, to scale the 'leaguered wall, 
Or dare the hottest of the fight, are toils 
That suit the impetuous bearing of his youth ; 
Yet like the gray-haired veteran he can shun 
The field of peril. Still before my eyes 
I place his bright example, for I love 



THE RETURN TO FRANCE 89 

His lofty courage, and his prudent thought ; 
Gifted like him, a warrior has no age." 

The queen's copy of this passage was given to 
Madame de Campan, the revered teacher of the 
young ladies of the court, and it met the fate of 
being burned on the very day Marie Antoinette's 
sad life came to an end at the hands of the execu- 
tioner during the height of the Terror. 

The queen had shown her interest in Lafayette's 
arrival by arranging to have an interview with 
the young hero when he was making his first visit 
to Versailles. At her suggestion Lafayette was 
now advanced by the king to be commander of 
an important regiment in the army of France, 
the king's own Dragoons. He was stationed at 
Saintes and afterwards at St. Jean-d'Angely, near 
Rochefort, where the regiment was conveniently 
quartered to be ready in case a project for the 
invasion of England by way of the British Channel 
should be carried out. Such a plan was under 
consideration, and Lafayette looked forward with 
dehght to the prospect of action against the country 
which he considered the ancient foe of France. 

But, to Lafayette's great grief, the plot to invade 
England failed; and he was now free to return 
to Paris and Versailles. The failure of the British 
plan also made it rather easier for the minds of 



go LAFAYETTE 

prominent officials to look toward taking some 
further part in the American struggle. To aid 
this Lafayette gladly appHed himself ; for while 
loyal always to his own nation, and standing 
ready at any point to leave all to serve France, he 
had not for a moment forgotten the needs of his 
adopted country across the Atlantic. In fact, 
when he reached home, he had not waited for his 
one week's punishment to be over before beginning 
to create interest in the cause for which he had 
risked his life. Benjamin Franklin, then ambas- 
sador to the court of France from the United States, 
was promptly allowed, under pretense of calling 
upon Lafayette's father-in-law, to visit Lafayette 
himself. 

There was a constant stream of callers coming 
to see and congratulate him, and never was there 
one among them who was permitted to misunder- 
stand the fact that Lafayette wished to move 
heaven and earth to secure help for the Conti- 
nental army in its struggle for freedom. He found 
himself, in a more important sense than ever 
before, the tie between France and America, for 
he enjoyed the confidence of both countries. 

To Washington he wrote : "If there is anything 
in France concerning which not only as a soldier 
but as a politician, or in any other capacity, I can 



THE RETURN TO FRANCE 91 

employ my exertions to the advantage of the 
United States, I hope it is unnecessary to say that 
I shall seize the opportunity and bless the day 
which shall render me useful to those whom I love 
with all the ardor and frankness of my heart." 

General Washington, on his part, wrote to La- 
fayette in this wise : 

''It gives me infinite pleasure to hear from your 
sovereign of the joy that your safe arrival in France 
has diffused among your friends. . . . Your for- 
ward zeal in the cause of liberty, your singular 
attachment to this infant world, your ardent and 
persevering efforts not only in America, but since 
your return to France, to serve the United States, 
your poKte attentions to Americans, and your 
strict and uniform friendship for me, have ripened 
the first impressions of esteem and attachment 
which I imbibed for you into such perfect love and 
gratitude, as neither time nor absence can impair. 
This will warrant my assuring you that whether 
in the character of an officer at the head of a 
corps of gallant Frenchmen if circumstances should 
require this, whether as major-general command- 
ing a division of the American army, or whether, 
after our swords and spears have given place to 
the plowshare and pruning-hook, I see you as a 
private gentleman, a friend and companion, I shall 



92 LAFAYETTE 

welcome you with all the warmth of friendship 
to Columbia's shores ; and in the latter case, to my 
rural cottage, where homely fare and a cordial 
reception shall be substituted for delicacies and 
costly living. This, from past experience, I know 
you can submit to; and if the lovely partner of 
your happiness will consent to participate with 
us in such rural entertainments and amusements, 
I can undertake on behalf of Mrs. Washington 
that she will do all in her power to make Virginia 
agreeable to the Marchioness. My incHnation 
and endeavors to do this cannot be doubted, when 
I assure you that I love everybody that is dear to 
you." 

Such a visit as this the Marchioness was never 
to pay. And we can not blame her if, during her 
husband's brief visits, she felt hke complaining 
that he absorbed himself in the interests of the 
American cause or was always planning fresh 
enterprises. But though she was now only nine- 
teen years old, she was proving herself the high- 
minded woman who could sympathize entirely 
v/ith her husband's ideals, and who could consider 
him dedicated to a great cause; therefore she 
could cheerfully lay aside merely selfish wishes. 
No one ever heard a complaint from her absolutely 
loyal lips. In December, 1779, the family was 



THE RETURN TO FRANCE 93 

made happy by the birth of a son, to whom, in 
honor of his illustrious friend, Lafayette gave the 
name of George Washington. 

Lafayette had many testimonials from his 
friends in the United States showing their appre- 
ciation of his efforts for them; and among them 
was one of special import. It consisted of a sword 
richly ornamented, with a handle of solid gold, 
sent to him by the American Congress. To 
Franklin was intrusted the pleasant task of pro- 
viding this rich gift. It was made in Paris and 
was engraved with representations of the actions 
in which Lafayette had taken part, together with 
his coat of arms, his chosen motto "Cur non?" 
and other emblematic designs selected by FrankHn ; 
and Franklin's grandson had the honor of convey- 
ing to Lafayette this testimonial of a nation's 
appreciation. 

"By the help of the exquisite artists of France," 
graciously wrote FrankHn in an accompanying 
letter, "I find it easy to express everything but the 
sense we have of your worth." 

Lafayette may have been in a fair way to be 
spoiled, but if he was he had a happy way of con- 
cealing it. He answered, "In some of the devices 
I cannot help finding too honorable a reward for 
those slight services which, in concert with my 



94 LAFAYETTE 

fellow-soldiers, and under the god-like American 
hero's orders, I had the good fortune to render.'^ 

This beautiful sword was in the course of time to 
meet with ill luck. When Revolutionists rifled 
the Chateau de Chaviniac, it was buried for safe- 
keeping and remained thus hidden for many 
years. Long afterwards Lafayette's son, George 
Washington Lafayette, grown to young manhood, 
unearthed the treasure and found that the blade was 
totally rusted away. Lafayette then had the 
happy thought of adjusting to this handle of pure 
gold the blade of a sword that had been made out 
of bolts and bars taken from the Bastille. Thus 
the associations of both worlds and of two struggles 
for freedom were united in one historic sword. 

There came a time when Lafayette felt himself 
warranted in presenting a Memoir to the Cabinet 
on the subject of giving direct relief to America. 
His plan, from a military standpoint, was masterly, 
and it produced so favorable an impression that 
it was accepted; and it soon became known to 
those worthy to be in the secret that France would 
send to America a reinforcement of six ships and 
six thousand men of the regular infantry. To 
this was added a loan of three milHon livres, and 
later still, through tlie appeals of Frankhn, another 
loan of the same amount was supplied. The Count 



THE RETURN TO FRANCE 95 

de Rochambeau, a trained soldier, was chosen 
to command the land forces and the Count de 
Ternay was to be admiral of the fleet. Lafayette 
was sent ahead to announce this happy news and 
to make preparations for the arrival of the expedi- 
tion. 

Wearing the uniform of an American ofiicer, 
Lafayette took his leave of the king; and on the 
4th of March, 1780, he sailed on the frigate Eer- 
mione. He reached Boston harbor on the 28th 
of April, 1780, after an absence of fifteen months. 
When word swept through the city that a ship was 
coming in with Lafayette on board, the people 
crowded to the wharf to welcome the returning 
French friend of America. This was the beginning 
of civic processions in Lafayette's honor. They 
cheered him from the ship's side to the residence 
of Governor Hancock where addresses were lis- 
tened to and congratulations exchanged. He 
called upon the Legislature then in session, and in 
the evening viewed the illuminations in his honor. 
Lafayette gave a dinner on board the ship to which 
he invited a large number of officials — the presi- 
dent of the Massachusetts Council, members of 
the legislature, the consul of France, and other 
men of dignity. The frigate was gayly decorated 
with the flags of many nations. Thirteen toasts 



96 LAFAYETTE 

were drunk — the number thirteen cannot have 
been an unlucky number in those days ! — and 
after the toast to Washington the great guns 
boomed seventeen times. 

As rapidly as possible Lafayette rode to Wash- 
ington's headquarters at Morristown, New Jersey, 
and made his happy announcement to the General 
himself. He then pressed on to Philadelphia to 
present to Congress the communication from the 
French government. He bore also a letter from 
Washington, in which the commander in chief 
introduced Lafayette as one who had *' signally 
distinguished himself in the service of this coun- 
try," and who, during the time that he had been 
in France, had "uniformly manifested the same 
zeal in our affairs which animated his conduct 
while he was among us"; who had been ''on all 
occasions an essential friend to America." 

The greatest possible effort was now made to 
equip the Continental army, but the resources 
of the country had already been grievously over- 
taxed. Washington had hardly been able to keep 
his army together at all. Half of his six thousand 
men were unfit for duty. They had sometimes 
had no bread for six days; sometimes for two or 
three days they would have neither meat nor 
bread. The commander clearly reaHzed that an 



THE RETURN TO FRANCE 97 

army reduced to nothing, without provisions or any 
of the necessary means to carry on a war, needed 
not a Httle help only — it needed a great deal. 

When, on the 2d of May, the French fleet finally 
set sail, delays had reduced the number of soldiers 
and the amount of suppHes. The EngKsh by this 
time had reahzed what was happening, and they 
carefully blockaded the second division of the 
squadron in the harbor of Brest; and when the 
first division reached Newport, the EngHsh cleverly 
surrounded the harbor with their ships, thus 
^'bottling up" the French and rendering them 
inactive and useless. In this way the great good 
that was expected from the French expedition came 
to naught. 

During all this trying time, Lafayette acted the 
part of a single-minded friend of both the French 
and the American armies. He was sent by Wash- 
ington to Newport to confer with the French 
generals, and later he was present at a joint meet- 
ing of the great French and American generals 
which was held at Hartford, Connecticut. La- 
fayette rode from one army to the other, holding 
conferences and putting important decisions into 
writing, or dictating the results of conversations. 
Many of these documents have been preserved 
in French or American state archives. 



98 LAFAYETTE 

Whatever time he could get apart from these 
labors he spent in training the battalion that had 
been assigned to him. This was a detachment 
of light infantry, selected from the best of the 
army. He took great pride in training these men, 
sent to France for black and white plumes for their 
caps, and tried to make them present as good an 
appearance as possible. The Marquis de Chastel- 
lux, who visited his camp on the Ramapo River, 
has left a dehghtful description of this visit in which 
he spoke of the j5ne appearance of the troops as 
their young commander had drawn them up on 
a height near his own station. Here, said Chastel- 
lux, Lafayette received his guest with more pride 
than if he had been entertaining at his estates in 
Auvergne. ''Happy his country," said Chastellux, 
''if she employs his services; happier still if she 
has no use for them !" 

It was during this autumn that Benedict Arnold 
made what Lafayette called that "horrid compact 
with the enemy" — an event that amazed and 
distressed him beyond any words. Lafayette was 
with Washington when the plot was discovered. 
He was also a member of the board to try the Brit- 
ish spy, Andre. His attitude toward Andre was 
very different from that toward Benedict Arnold. 
Andre, he said, conducted himself in a manner so 



THE RETURN TO FRANCE 99 

frank, so noble, and so delicate, that he could 
not help feeling infinite sorrow for him. 

The winter of 1780-81 was the darkest period 
of the war. But it was to be followed by a happier 
season, one in which Lafayette was at last to have 
as large a share of action as his heart could wish. 



CHAPTER X 

Lafayette in Virginia 

The British still held the city of New York. 
General Washington's army sat in their impreg- 
nable camps on the Hudson and along the Dela- 
ware, where he could reach out a hand to New 
England on the east, and to Philadelphia on the 
south, at the same time threatening now and then 
the stronghold of the British. Meantime an active 
campaign was being carried on in the states south 
of Virginia. At the battle of Charleston the brave 
General Lincoln and his gallant army were com- 
pelled by the British to lay down their arms and 
give themselves up as prisoners of war without 
the usual courtesies. The ceremony of surrender 
was particularly galling. Forbidden by their 
conquerors to play a British or a Hessian air, 
they marched to the joyous melody of " Yankee 
Doodle," their colors cased, and their hearts re- 
bellious. The battle of Camden was another 
defeat for the Americans. On that disastrous 



LAFAYETTE IN VIRGINIA lOl 

day fell the companion of Lafayette's first voyage, 
the Baron de Kalb, who died bravely after re- 
ceiving no less than eleven wounds. Sir Henry 
Clinton, the British commander in the south, 
thought that defeats like these would finish the 
question for that part of the country, so he gave 
out proclamations of amnesty to the tractable 
and built scaffolds to hang the unsubmissive. But 
the south was not to be so easily subdued. The 
British met with defeat at King's Mountain, and 
in October, 1780, General Greene was sent to push 
the southern campaign more vigorously. 

One result of these southern disasters was to 
make the importance of Virginia increasingly 
evident as a base for operations in the Carolinas. 
Cornwallis saw this and he determined to reduce 
that state, to cut off the southern army from its 
base, and thus to control the approaches to the 
heart of the country. Accordingly, in January, 
1781, he sent Benedict Arnold, who had been made 
a brigadier general in the British army, with a 
strong force, and with two trusted British colonels, 
to conduct a campaign in that state. 

If the British commander in chief had wished 
to fill the men of the Continental army with a 
fire that would make them unconquerable, this 
was the way to do it, and this was the man against 



102 LAFAYETTE 

whom they most desired to fight. On the other 
hand, General Washington chose a leader for the 
defense who was so well beloved by his men, and 
who was himself filled with so fiery an enthusiasm 
for the cause, that this alone would have been 
enough to bring into effect all the strength of 
those drained and exhausted men and to energize 
them for prodigies of valor. This leader was 
Lafayette. In February, 1781, he was commis- 
sioned to go against Arnold. 

Lafayette was glad to be trusted with a com- 
mand and overjoyed at the prospect of action. 
But he still beHeved that the great final blow was 
to be struck at New York and he was most reluc- 
tant to be separated from Washington with whom 
he intensely longed to be when the great climax 
came. However, he obeyed orders with perfect 
alacrity and planned for a swift march in order to 
intercept any efforts on the part of Arnold to 
obtain access to the various storehouses and river 
crossings in Virginia. Leaving under guard his 
tents, artillery, and everything that could be 
spared, with orders to follow as rapidly as possible, 
he marched his men through heavy rains and over 
bad roads. 

The Virginia campaign, says a French histo- 
rian, is to be ranked among the classic tales of all 



*i 



Mi 



LAFAYETTE IN VIRGINIA 103 

time; and in this campaign the young Lafayette 
was the most notable leader. It was on the 6th 
of April, 1 78 1, that General Washington wrote 
to Lafayette, giving him full instructions, which 
led him into the midst of active service. 

Lafayette's detachment included men from New 
Jersey, from New Hampshire, and from other New 
England states. Among them were some of the 
men who had been willing to take their lives in 
their hands and follow their young leader on the 
hazardous expedition into Canada. Although the 
men had no idea at this time what was before them, 
they were now going to follow Lafayette to the 
glory that he so ardently desired. 

But in spite of the splendid spirit of the troops, 
Lafayette found that they were in sore need of 
encouragement. They saw that they were not 
going toward the grand final attack; they were 
not used to the blind obedience exacted from 
trained European troops; and they did not 
understand this discouraging southward move. 

Fearing that the summer would be wasted, 
Lafayette thought of a device to strengthen the 
tie between himself and his detachment. He 
wrote it down in the order of the day that they 
were about to start out on an expedition that would 
tax all a soldier's powers, and in which there would 



I04 LAFAYETTE 

be abundant dangers and difficulties. The enemy, 
he said, was far superior to them in numbers, 
thoroughly despised them, and was determined 
to conquer them. He added that no soldier 
should accompany him who was inclined to aban- 
don him; nor was it necessary that any one 
should desert; for any man could, if he desired, 
have a pass and be sent to join his regiment in 
winter quarters. 

This method of approach had more than the 
desired effect. Lafayette soon wrote to Washing- 
ton: ^'Our men are in high spirits. Their honor 
was interested, and murmurs as well as desertions 
are entirely out of fashion.'' 

Soon after the advent of Lafayette in the Vir- 
ginia field, he came into contact with Benedict 
Arnold in a very curious way. The commander 
of the opposing British forces had died, and Arnold 
took his place. About that time Arnold sent a 
message under a flag of truce to Lafayette. When 
Lafayette learned that the letter which was brought 
in was from the traitor, he returned it unopened, 
sending a verbal message stating that with Ben- 
edict Arnold he would hold no communication 
whatever. Later he sent a formal letter to the 
officer that had brought the flag, in which he de- 
clined all correspondence with Arnold, but added 



LAFAYETTE IN VIRGINIA 105 

with the utmost courtesy that ^'in case any other 
British officer should honour him with a letter, he 
would always be happy to give the officers every 
testimony of esteem." 

The subject of the letter from Arnold was an 
exchange of prisoners, a matter that interested 
him extremely, as he well knew that Lafayette 
could hardly have pleased the American people 
better than by presenting Benedict Arnold to 
them a prisoner. We know that Arnold's mind 
dwelt on this aspect of his sad situation from the 
fact that he once quizzed a captured American to 
find out what the Americans would do with him if 
they took him prisoner. The soldier audaciously 
repHed that they would ''cut off the leg that had 
been wounded in the country's service and hang 
the rest of him!" Lafayette's action in regard 
to the letter from Arnold was very gratifying to 
Washington ; he said that in nothing had Lafayette 
pleased him more than in refusing to hold communi- 
cation with Benedict Arnold. 

Soon after this Arnold was transferred to New 
York, and Cornwallis came forward with reen- 
forcements, declaring that he would now ''pro- 
ceed to dislodge Lafayette from Richmond." 
The struggle between the young French officer 
(not yet twenty-four years old) in his first attempt 



io6 LAFAYETTE 



1 



at carrying on an independent campaign, and the 
veteran British commander with years of service 
behind him, was now taken up with more spirit 
than ever before. It was the crisis of the Revolu- 
tion. If the Continental army could only hold 
out a Httle longer, it might be possible, by adroit 
advance and diplomatic retreat, to avoid un- 
equal battles until the foe was worn out or until 
some favorable opportunity should arise for a 
direct attack. Cornwallis, of course, despised 
his exhausted enemy. A letter from him was in- 
tercepted and brought into the American camp; 
in the letter he said, ''The Boy cannot escape me !" 
Lafayette's face must have been set in very grim 
lines when he read that letter. 

Technically, Lafayette had been taking orders 
from General Greene whose command was in the 
south and included Virginia. But on the 'i8th 
of May, Lafayette was ordered to take the entire 
command in Virginia and to send all reports di- 
rectly to General Washington. " The Boy's " letters 
to Colonel Hamilton show that he fully recognized 
the gravity of affairs, the responsibility of his 
position, and the dangers of his own over-enthu- 
siastic spirit. The British command of the adja- 
cent waters, the superiority of their cavalry, and 
the great disproportion in the forces of the two 



LAFAYETTE IN VIRGINIA 107 

armies, gave the enemy such advantages that 
Lafayette dared not venture to engage the British. 
The British generals thoroughly understood what 
they called Lafayette's ''gasconading disposition," 
and they rehed upon it to work woe to his plans 
and to contribute to their own glory. His pru- 
dence disappointed them as much as it satisfied 
Washington who had said of Lafayette, ''This 
noble soldier combines all the military fire of youth 
with an unusual maturity of judgment." La- 
fayette desired to be worthy of this high praise. 

On April 29, Lafayette and his Hght infantry 
reached Richmond in time to prevent its capture 
and to protect the supphes that had been con- 
centrated there. In the battle at Green Spring his 
bravery led him once more to plunge into the thick 
of the fight, losing his horse (some reports say two 
horses) which was shot under him or by his side. 

In Wayne's official report on that battle he said 
that "Lafayette was frequently requested to keep 
at a greater distance, but his native bravery 
rendered him deaf to the admonition." 

He compelled the admiration of his opponents 
by his skill in defensive maneuvers. The "Boy" 
obeyed his commander in chief, and he succeeded 
in misleading his foe, for CornwalHs beheved that 
the American force was larger than it actually 



io8 LAFAYETTE 

was; he also believed that he could break down 
the loyalty of the inhabitants of Pennsylvania 
and of Virginia. In both these points he was 
direfully mistaken. But Lafayette had high re- 
spect for CornwalHs as a general. ''His Lordship 
plays so well," he complained, ''that no blunder 
can be hoped from him to recover a bad step of 
ours." 

Finally, reenforcements did come to Lafayette. 
In despair the American Congress sent a special 
messenger express to Paris to bear one more 
urgent appeal for help. Washington wrote, "We 
are at the end of our tether ; . . . now or never our 
deliverance must come." 

Impetuous young John Laurens was chosen to 
be this Ambassador Extraordinary to France. 
Laurens was greatly admired and loved by La- 
fayette and he recommended him to the affections 
of his noble relatives in Paris. At the moment 
Laurens's father was being held a prisoner by the 
British in the Tower of London — a fact that no 
doubt quickened the zeal of the son. At all 
events, he was successful in his mission. The 
French fleet in the West Indies was ordered to the 
United States and the king himself became surety 
for several millions of livres in addition to what 
had already been sent to our aid. 



LAFAYETTE IN VIRGINIA 109 

The time was coming when Lafayette could 
begin to move the British army before him Httle 
by Httle down the York River toward Yorktown, 
a method of procedure that now became, as the 
British reports described it, the ''constant and 
good poHcy of the enemy." On the 24th of 
September, 1781, CornwalHs proceeded to occupy 
Yorktown and to strengthen it against attack. 

The city of Yorktown is situated near the en- 
trance to Chesapeake Bay. At that place two 
rivers enter the bay, the York and the James, and 
upon a conspicuous bluff on the northern side of 
the neck of land between them stood this small 
town. 

CornwalHs began at once to prepare the place 
for assault. Around the village he built a series 
of fortifications consisting of seven redoubts and 
six batteries on the land side, and these he con- 
nected by intrenchments. He placed a line of bat- 
teries on the river bank to command the channel, 
and he estabHshed outworks to impede the ap- 
proach of the enemy. Lafayette saw all this and 
rejoiced, for he beHeved that CornwalHs was at 
last where he most desired to have him — in a 
place where he would be open to attack, and with 
some hope of success. AH the country around 
Yorktown was now familar to Lafayette. He 



no LAFAYETTE 

knew every inch of the land, the river, the morass, 
and the commanding hill. '^ Should a fleet come 
in at this moment, affairs would take a very happy 
turn," he wrote joyfully to General Washington. 

On the 30th of August the French fleet, under 
the Count de Grasse, with twenty-eight ships of 
the line, appeared in the waters of Chesapeake 
Bay ; a few days later the Marquis de Saint Simon, 
field marshal in the French army, debarked a 
large reenforcement of French troops ; and on the 
4th of September Lafayette moved nearer to York- 
town and took a position with the troops he could 
bring together, — his own Hght infantry, the 
militia, and the reinforcements at WilHamsburg, 
a town in the vicinity of the British position. 

Nothing now remained but the arrival of General 
Washington himself to take charge of the whole 
enterprise, and Lafayette's happiness was com- 
plete when, on the 14th of September, he resigned 
his command into the hands of his revered General. 



CHAPTER XI 

The Two Redoubts 

It is September, 1781. The ''Boy" has not 
been caught. He is encamped at Williamsburg, 
and looks toward his powerful enemy who is sur- 
rounded by well-devised intrenchments at York- 
town, twelve miles down the river. 

The American and French troops, fifteen or 
sixteen thousand in number, arrived and took 
their places. General Washington was in supreme 
command. America had never before seen such 
an army. The Americans had done their utmost. 
That part of the French army that had come down 
from Connecticut with Rochambeau had astonished 
the people of Philadelphia as they marched through 
the city by the brilliancy of their rose-and-violet- 
faced uniforms, and by the display of their grace- 
ful and accurate military movements. Now they 
were to have an opportunity to show whether 
their warlike spirit was expressed chiefly in ruffles 
and tinsel trimmings, or whether they could win 
fame by more solid qualities. 

Ill 



112 LAFAYETTE 

On the 29th of September the combined American 
and French armies moved southward to a point 
about four miles from the town. There they 
divided into two columns and the Americans 
defiled to the right, the French to the left. They 
then proceeded to arrange themselves around the 
town in an irregular semicircle that extended 
from the river bank at the west to the shore on the 
southeast, a distance of about two miles. To- 
ward the southern side were ranged the various 
American regiments under Baron Steuben and 
General Wayne ; and next to these stood what was 
called the Light Infantry corps under Lafayette. 
He had ventured to suggest to General Washington 
that he wished his division might be composed of 
the troops that had been with him through the 
fatigues and dangers of the Virginia campaign; 
this, he said, would be the greatest reward he 
could have for the services he might have rendered, 
as he had now the strongest attachment for those 
troops. Still another division stood at the extreme 
right. This was under the command of General 
Lincoln, who had been forced, through no fault of 
his own, to surrender to the British at Charleston. 

The approaches to Yorktown were easy; there 
were means of shelter everywhere, and the Ameri- 
can army at once began preparations for the siege. 



THE TWO REDOUBTS 1 13 

At last the men finished the construction of 
two parallels. They were now within three hun- 
dred yards of the British defenses. General 
Washington then placed his siege guns in position. 
It was the first week in October, 1781. On the 
sixth the siege began. 

Every point in this dramatic history has been 
made the subject of story or poem, and naturally 
some legendary quality would after a time irradiate 
the incidents. Thus some writers affirm that Gen- 
eral Washington gave the order for the first shot, 
and some say that it was Lafayette. The story is 
this. Before signing the order. General Washing- 
ton turned to Thomas Nelson who was both 
governor of Virginia and a general in the army, 
and inquired, 

"At what object shall this gun be fired?" 

Pointing to his own dwelling where the roof 
appeared above the trees of Yorktown, and where 
it was understood Cornwallis had his headquarters, 
Genera,l Nelson answered, 

"There is my house; aim at that!" 

The story is that Washington turned to the 
gunner and said, 

"For every shot you cause to hit that house, I 
will give you five guineas." 

From the 6th to the loth of October, the fire 



114 LAFAYETTE 

from the allied American and French army in- 
creased daily in vigor. On the nth the second 
parallel was completed and entered, and the be- 
sieging line was thus tightened and strengthened. 
Within their intrenchments the British were watch- 
ing for reenforcements that were fated never to 
come. 

On the 14th of October it was found that the 
British held two redoubts whose guns were in- 
conveniently active, and the Americans believed 
they must be silenced. The redoubts had been 
built on two small hills on the American right, in 
a difficult region where rocky cuts alternated with 
swampy depressions. These two hills were called 
*' Number Nine" and "Number Ten"; ''Number 
Ten" was also called "Rock Redoubt." These 
redoubts were about three hundred yards in front 
of the British garrison, and Washington decided 
after consultation that they were of sufficient im- 
portance to take by storm. 

Accordingly the order was given. The reduc- 
tion of Redoubt Number Nine was intrusted to a 
group of French grenadiers and chasseurs. Rock 
Redoubt stood nearest the river ; this was assigned 
to Lafayette with his American regiments. 

Important among the men under General La- 
fayette's command was Lieutenant Colonel de 



THE TWO REDOUBTS 115 

Gimat, the French aid who had always been so 
faithful a follower of Lafayette; he commanded 
a body of men from Massachusetts and Rhode 
Island. Then there was Lieutenant Colonel 
Alexander Hamilton, the young American to whom 
Lafayette was personally so warmly attached, who 
afterwards was to become one of the most dis- 
tinguished servants of the new nation, and who 
was to meet so strange and sad an end after his 
great work was done. 

When Hamilton heard a rumor that General 
Washington was intending to give to a certain 
Colonel Barber the opportunity to lead the attack, 
his spirit was immediately aroused. Without a 
moment's delay he hastened to headquarters and 
warmly urged his right to the honorable and 
dangerous task. He gained his point and re- 
turned in a state of exuberant satisfaction, ex- 
claiming to his major, "We have it! We have 
it!'' So Lafayette assigned Lieutenant Colonel 
Alexander Hamilton to lead the advance corps, 
to be assisted by Colonel de Gimat. In all there 
were four hundred men under Lafayette for this 
storming adventure. 

It was eight o'clock on the evening of October 
14. The storming of the two redoubts had been 
carefully planned even down to the least details; 



Ii6 LAFAYETTE 

but so energetic was the work of the men, so dash- 
ing was their valor, that when the time really 
came, the attack lasted but a few minutes. 

Lafayette's redoubt was taken in a mere flash 
of time — in less than ten minutes, some close 
observers said; others made it eight minutes. 
The six shells, the signal agreed upon, were fired. 
The men started the march. Rock Redoubt 
loomed before them in the thick dusk of twihght. 
They advanced in good order with their bayonets 
fixed and in utter silence, as they had been com- 
manded. But when the first volley of musketry 
came down from the top of the redoubt, they 
broke their silence and huzzaed with all their 
power. Then they rushed forward, charging with 
their bayonets as they ran, and in almost no time 
they were within the redoubt, with the defending 
officer and forty-five men their prisoners. Not 
a shot had been fired ; and so swift was the action 
that few of the Americans were lost. 

The not ungenerous rivalry between the groups 
of men who took the two redoubts is one of the 
most picturesque incidents of the American Rev- 
olution. If it had not been for the fact that the 
French detachment had paused to have the abatis 
cut through in regular order, they would probably 
have been in their redoubt before the Americans 



THE TWO REDOUBTS 117 

under Lafayette were in theirs; for when they 
were once on the height, they occupied but six 
minutes in making themselves masters of their 
redoubt and in manning it again for action. 

One move follows another quickly at such a 
time, and when Lafayette had entered his redoubt, 
he looked over the parapet and saw that the men 
on the other height were still struggling for the 
possession of theirs. It happened that a certain 
General Viomesnil had expressed a doubt as to the 
efficiency of the American troops, therefore La- 
fayette welcomed this opportunity to show their 
valor. He instantly sent an aid to announce to 
General Viomesnil, with a flourish of compliments, 
that the American troops were in possession of 
their redoubt and to say that if M. le Baron de 
Viomesnil desired any help, the Marquis de La- 
fayette would have great pleasure in assisting him ! 
The Major sent word, 

"Tell the Marquis that I am not in mine, but 
that I will be in five minutes.'' 

This promise was made good by the brave and 
energetic French troops. Perhaps never before 
had the space of two minutes been of so much im- 
portance in the honor of two nations. 

General Washington who, in his eagerness to 
see this important action, had ridden near, — too 



Ii8 LAFAYETTE 

near to please his officers and surgeons, — had 
closely watched the storming of the redoubts. 
When they were taken and the guns had been 
instantly whirled about to face the enemy, he 
turned to Generals Knox and Lincoln who stood 
near and said with emphasis, 

*'The work is done, and well done." 
Then he mounted his horse and rode back to 
headquarters. 



CHAPTER XII 

The Surrender of Yorktown 

At the siege of Yorktown much of the gallantry 
and glory of war was to be seen; but there was 
another side as well. The dwelling houses in 
ruin, the sufferings of the wounded men, the surgical 
operations, the amputations, the groans and sighs 
and homesickness, the dying gasps, the bodies of 
slain horses lying in the way — these also are war. 

In Yorktown itself many houses were in flames. 
A sortie had been attempted and had failed. 
British reenforcements had not come. Supplies 
were giving out. The outlook seemed hopeless. 
The men fought without spirit. An attempt was 
made to escape by sea. It also failed. A violent 
storm drove the boats back to shore. The idea 
of surrender was entertained. 

Consequently, on the 17th of October, General 
Cornwallis sent a note to General Washington 
asking for a cessation of hostilities for twenty- 
four hours, to settle terms for the surrender of 

119 



I20 LAFAYETTE 

Yorktown. Washington allowed two hours in- 
stead of twenty-four. Why waste any more time ? 

Interviews were immediately held, and a treaty 
of capitulation was framed. 

When it was known that the British had yielded, 
a wave of the wildest joy spread through the 
American and French camps — and through the 
whole country as well. Messengers rode at top 
speed to Philadelphia to carry the good news. 
Congress was sitting there at the time. The rider 
came in at midnight. At one o'clock the watchers 
called "All's well," as usual, but added, 

^' Cornwallis is taken T' 

Windows were opened and heads thrust out. 
The streets soon filled with rejoicing people. What 
Lafayette called "a good noisy feu de joie" 
followed. 

The third article in the document of capitulation 
stated that the British troops should be required 
to march out to the place appointed in front of 
the posts, at two o'clock precisely, with shouldered 
arms, colors cased, and drums beating a British 
or a German march. They were then to ground 
their arms and return to their encampments. 
The same afternoon the works at Gloucester on 
the opposite side of the river were to be given up, 
the infantry to file out as prescribed for the garri- 



THE SURRENDER OF YORKTOWN 121 

son at York, and the cavalry to go forth with their 
swords drawn and their trumpets sounding. 

Over all this there had been a sharp discussion. 
The British wished to receive the "honors of war," 
that is, to go out with colors flying and drums 
beating; and the courteous Washington was in- 
clined to grant this request. But Lafayette re- 
membered the requirements the British had made 
at the defeat at Charleston. They had compelled 
the men to march out with colors cased, and had 
forbidden them to play a British or a Hessian air ; 
and he thought that in fair retaliation the British 
army should now give up their arms in the manner 
required by them on that occasion. He suggested, 
however, one original variation, — that they should 
be not forbidden but required to march to a British 
or a German air. Colonel Laurens was in accord 
with this. He had served at Charleston under 
General Lincoln, and he was only too glad to re- 
mind the British commissioners that it had been so 
arranged and required of the American troops 
after that defeat. 

"The article remains or I cease to be a com«- 
missioner," the young man said firmly. The high- 
spirited Laurens could but remember that at that 
very moment his own father was still imprisoned 
in the Tower of London. 



122 LAFAYETTE 

The condition remained; and at noon on the 
19th of October the capitulation was signed. At 
one o'clock possession was taken of the enemies' 
works, and at two the garrison marched out. 

A field about a mile and a half south of York- 
town was chosen for the ceremony. The scene 
was brilliant and spectacular. All the American 
soldiers were drawn up in a line on one side 
of the road and the French stood opposite with 
General Rochambeau, their commander in chief, 
leading their line. General Washington, mounted 
on his horse and attended by his aids, was at the 
head. Washington was ardently admired by all 
the French officers and they must have envied 
him his magnificent appearance in this fortunate 
hour. That fearless and austere commander, 
who had shared the sufferings and privations of 
his men in the dark night of Valley Forge, now re- 
joiced with them in the hour of accomplishment. 

The French made a splendid appearance with 
their uniforms of bright colors and contrasting 
trimmings. Nearly all had the conventional three- 
cornered Revolutionary cap of blue ; and the 
trousers were prevailingly of a lemon or canary 
yellow. Glittering orders were flashing on many 
uniforms, their banners were embroidered with 
golden lilies ; each noble had his servants arrayed 



THE SURRENDER OF YORKTOWN 123 

in silver-laced livery, and the French bands of 
many fifes, horns, and cymbals, played such music 
as was never heard before. 

The American soldiers, who had inherited no 
traditions of either the glory or the disasters of 
warfare, could not compare with the foreigners 
in their full-dress display. But in every heart 
among them there was a feeling that richly com- 
pensated for the lack of feathers and facings. 
Whether shopkeeper or farmer or mighty hunter 
from the interior who stood in that line, the tide 
of united nationality ran higher in his heart than 
ever before. And every last man among them 
was one degree happier by having the dashing 
young French Major General, their beloved 
*' Marquis," on the American side of the procession 
instead of in the foreign line. The ''Boy" that 
Cornwallis was so certain he could catch was 
splendid that day in the perfection of military 
form. He sat, as always, very perfectly on his 
horse and he had the grace to be proud of the 
company in which he stood. As to his own regi- 
ment of Light Infantry, he had always been fond 
of decorating them with finery. They appeared 
now in dark leather leggins and white trousers; 
their blue coats had white facings and white cuffs ; 
and a blue feather stood up in front of the cap and 



124 LAFAYETTE 

waved over the crown. This was the regulation 
uniform for them, but perhaps, having just gone 
through the severities of their Virginia campaign, 
they were not able to ''live up" to their fine clothes. 
However, nothing mattered on that great day. 

A vast concourse of American spectators was 
present to witness the surrender, but their desire 
to see Lord CornwalHs was not gratified. He 
pleaded indisposition and appointed General 
O'Hara in his place. As this general approached 
the group of commanding officers, the bands added 
their music. By the stipulation, they had been 
commanded to play an English or a Hessian march, 
but they were too proud to select one of their dig- 
nified national airs. Instead, they gave the 
tune of an English folk song of hoary age, known 
from time immemorial as ''Derry Down," but 
now called ''The World Turned Upside Down," 
a title the British bandmaster no doubt considered 
appropriate to the circumstances. 

But the dignity of the occasion required that 
they should now observe the proprieties, for there 
was a wonderful pageant to be viewed, and all 
felt the great import of the hour. 

The conquered army advanced between the 
two long Hues of French and American soldiers. 
General O'Hara led the procession, riding slowly 



THE SURRENDER OF YORKTOWN 125 

and proudly. As he approached General 
Washington, he removed his hat and apologized 
for the absence of General CornwalUs. General 
Washington received the apology and indicated 
that he had appointed General Lincoln, as the 
conquered commander of Charleston, to do the 
honors of the day and to receive the arms of the 
conquered. The moment was historic. 

In one of the halls at Yale University stands a 
celebrated picture, painted by Trumbull, which 
gives a vivid impression of the brilliancy and im- 
portance of the occasion. In this picture General 
Washington, in an attitude of great dignity, is 
placed in the center of the scene. Near him stands 
General Lincoln who is being richly rewarded for 
his bitter defeat at Charleston. His hand is held 
out to receive the sword which the representative 
of General CornwalHs is passing to him. 

At the left of the picture are seen the French 
officers. Rochambeau is at the back and a little 
separated from the rest, and the others in the 
line are the counts, marquises, and barons who 
were officers in the French army. 

General Lafayette, the American, was on the 
American side, not far from his beloved General 
Washington. The one nearest to the com- 
mander in chief is General (or Governor) Thomas 



126 LAFAYETTE 

Nelson, the one who had suggested that his own 
house roof be aimed at in the beginning of the 
siege ; the next is Lafayette ; then Baron Steuben ; 
the others are representative commanders from 
various states. 

The ceremony that followed this cHmax was 
most impressive. General Lincoln received the 
sword of Cornwallis, and at once handed it back 
to General O'Hara. The several regiments came 
forward to dehver their colors. Twenty-eight 
British captains, each bearing a flag folded in a 
case, were drawn up in a Hne opposite the twenty- 
eight American sergeants who were stationed to 
receive the flags. Ensign Wilson, then but eight- 
een years old, the youngest commissioned ofiicer 
in the American army, was chosen to conduct this 
ceremony and to hand the colors on to the American 
sergeants. Lafayette looked down from his place 
in the line of mounted American officers and felt 
that his most ardent hopes were now fulfilled, and 
that his motto, "Cur non," had brought him only 
the best of fortune. 

The day after the ceremony of surrender was the 
Sabbath, and General Washington ordered that 
divine service should be held in all the regiments 
and that Thanksgiving should be the theme. 
The next day he gave a dinner to which the general 



THE SURRENDER OF YORKTOWN 127 

officers of the three armies were invited. Lafayette 
could not restrain his admiration for Cornwallis 
for his gallant and appropriate conduct upon all 
these rather embarrassing occasions. 

If, however, he had possessed the gift of proph- 
ecy, he might have looked forward but one 
short century to the centennial of Yorktown, 
when the flags of the United States and of Great 
Britain would be run up together on the site of 
this historic surrender. Then he would have 
seen British and American officers stand together 
with bared heads and in brotherly friendliness, 
while salutes were fired and cheers rent the air. 

Looking still further, he would have seen the 
day when the people of France would unite with 
their one-time foe in various endeavors both peace- 
ful and warHke. A strange planet is this, for the 
shifting of national loyalties and the rending and 
intertwining of bonds of union! If history could 
make the human race amenable to receiving any 
instruction whatever, we should learn that war 
never yet decided any problem that could not have 
been better settled in some other way. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Lionized by Two Worlds 

Three days after the surrender, the 2 2d of 
October, Lafayette was on board the Ville de Paris 
in Chesapeake Bay. It was believed that the 
surrender of CornwalHs would be practically con- 
clusive as to the matter at issue between England 
and the United States. Lafayette therefore felt 
a sweep of thoughts toward home. Congress gave 
him leave of absence. The Alliance was again 
placed at his disposal and awaited him in Boston 
harbor. 

An adoring France received him on his arrival. 
He had been the hero of the New World ; he now 
became the hero of the Old. The king of France 
gave him audience; when he arrived the queen 
sent her carriage to bring Adrienne, who at the 
moment happened to be at some royal fete, as 
swiftly as possible to the Noailles mansion. Balls 
were given in his honor. He was presented with 
laurel at the opera. The king made him a field 

ia8 



LIONIZED BY TWO WORLDS 129 

marshal, his commission to date from the day of 
Cornwallis's surrender, and he was invited by 
Richeheu to a dinner where all the field marshals 
of France were present, and where the health of 
Washington was drunk with words so full of rev- 
erent admiration that they did Lafayette's heart 
good. 

About this time a traveled American gentleman, 
Ledyard by name, was staying in Paris and com- 
mented on the popularity of the returned American 
hero. He said : 

''I took a walk to Paris this morning and saw 
the Marquis de Lafayette. He is a good man, this 
same Marquis. I esteem him. I even love him, 

and so we all do, except a few, who worship him 

If I find in my travels a mountain as much ele- 
vated above other mountains as he is above or- 
dinary men, I will name it Lafayette." 

The meeting of Lafayette with Adrienne cannot 
be described. He had now proved the value of 
his love of freedom, and she was filled with pride 
in the acknowledgment he received on all sides. 
The family reunion was perfect. He wrote to 
Washington, ''My daughter and your George have 
grown so much that I find I am much older than I 
thought." He had reached the advanced age of 
twenty-four ! 



130 LAFAYETTE 

Lafayette was at once concerned with the con- 
cluding negotiations for peace between England 
and the United States. To hasten these and to 
carry on further miHtary plans, France united 
with Spain in a projected expedition against the 
EngKsh possessions in the West Indies. For this 
purpose Lafayette, in December, 1782, went to 
Cadiz as chief of staff, where an armament of 
sixty ships and twenty-four thousand men were 
assembHng. But while waiting for the final orders 
to sail, a swift courier brought the news to Cadiz 
that the treaty of peace had, on the 20th of Janu- 
ary, 1783, been finally signed at Paris. Lafayette 
wished to be the one to carry this news to America, 
but he was told that his presence at the negotia- 
tions at Madrid was necessary to their success, and 
therefore he had to forego the pleasure of being 
the personal messenger of the good news. Instead, 
he was allowed to borrow from the fleet a ship which 
he sent, as swiftly as possible, to the land of his 
heart. The ship lent him was Le Triomphe, well 
named for this message, and this was the first ship 
to bring the news of the Peace to our shores. 

His work in Spain being successfully accom- 
plished, he returned to Paris by swift posts, which 
means that he went in a carriage, with relays of 
good horses ; and by driving day and night, over 



LIONIZED BY TWO WORLDS 131 

the mountains and through the valleys, following 
ancient Roman roads and crossing through many 
historic sites and cities, he covered the wide dis- 
tance between the capital of Spain and that of 
France. 

The war being over, Washington, as every one 
knows, retired to his estate at Mount Vernon, an 
act incomprehensible to some, but fully under- 
stood by his '^adopted son,'' Lafayette, who wrote : 

^'Your return to a private station is called the 
finishing stroke of an unparalleled character. 
Never did a man exist who stands so honorably 
in the opinion of mankind, and your name if pos- 
sible will become greater to posterity. Everything 
that is great and everything that is good were never 
hitherto united in one man; never did that man 
live whom the soldier, statesman, patriot, and 
philosopher could equally admire ; and never was 
a revolution brought about which, in all its mo- 
tives, its conduct, its consequences, could so well 
immortaHze its glorious chief. I am proud of you, 
my dear General ; your glory makes me feel as if 
it were my own; and while the world is gaping 
upon you, I am pleased to think and to tell that 
the qualities of your heart do render you still 
more valuable than anything you have done." 

From Mount Vernon, where the wearied and 



132 LAFAYETTE 

peace-loving warrior was very glad to be, Wash- 
ington, in February, 1784, wrote to Lafayette: 

"At length, my dear Marquis, I am become a 
private citizen on the banks of the Potomac, and 
under the shadow of my own vine and fig-tree, 
free from the bustle of the camp, and the busy 
scenes of pubhc life, I am pleasing myself with 
those tranquil enjoyments of which the soldier who 
is ever in pursuit of fame; the statesman whose 
watchful days and sleepless nights are spent in 
devising schemes to promote the welfare of his 
own, perhaps the ruin of other countries, as if this 
globe was insufficient for us all ; the courtier who 
is always watching the countenance of his prince 
in hopes of catching a gracious smile, can have 
but Httle conception." 

He then goes on to give a brief history of recent 
events — the evacuation of New York, the Amer- 
ican troops entering that city in good order, and 
New York finally freed from the British flag. 
He regretfully declined the pressing invitation of 
Lafayette to come to Paris, and again invited him 
and Madame de Lafayette to pay a visit at 
Mount Vernon. The correspondents appear to 
have thought of each other frequently, though sepa- 
rated by the wide seas. Later, Lafayette had joy- 
ous news to impart, for he wrote to Washington : 



LIONIZED BY TWO WORLDS 133 

"I want to tell you that Madame de Lafayette 
and my three children are well, and that all of us in 
the family join to present their dutiful affectionate 
compliments to Mrs. Washington and yourself. 
Tell her that I hope soon to thank her for a dish of 
tea at Mount Vernon. Yes, my dear General, 
before the month of June is over, you will see a 
vessel coming up the Potomac and out of that ves- 
sel will your friend jump, with a panting heart 
and all the feelings of perfect happiness." 

During Lafayette's visit to America in 1784 
the people had an opportunity to show their 
gratitude to one who had freely given his services 
to them in their day of need. In New York he 
was received with the greatest enthusiasm by the 
whole people, including his affectionate companions 
in arms. From here on he listened to the ringing 
of bells and the resounding of huzzas by day and 
saw lavish illuminations in his honor by night. 
A visit of ten days at Mount Vernon gave great 
pleasure to Washington as well as to Lafayette. 
In Boston his coming was celebrated at the stump 
of the Liberty Tree that the British had cut down 
during their occupation of the city. Many speeches 
were made during this journey, and Lafayette 
showed himself tactful in adapting his words to 
the occasion. His tact was prompted by a sin- 



134 LAFAYETTE 

cere liking for all people, a benevolent feeling 
toward the whole world. This was the foundation 
of much that was attractive and useful in his 
character. 

During this journey Lafayette went as far north 
as Portsmouth and as far south as Yorktown. 
The various great battlefields of the campaign of 
1 781 each received a visit in the company of Wash- 
ington and of other companions in arms. The 
different states vied with one another in giving 
his name to their towns and villages — a custom 
that has continued to this day. The state of Vir- 
ginia placed a bust of Lafayette in the capitol at 
Richmond ; another was presented to the city of 
Paris by the minister of the United States, and 
was received with great pomp at the Hotel de 
Ville, or city hall. Three states, Maryland, Con- 
necticut, and Virginia, conferred on him the right 
of citizenship for himself and his children, an en- 
actment that later became national; and so La- 
fayette became an American citizen in legal form 
as well as in spirit. How Httle did he think that 
this right would become so precious a boon to 
him and would be so sorely needed ! 

The bust in the Hotel de Ville was destroyed at 
the time of the Terror ; and the day came soon 
after when nearly all that remained to the "Hero 



LIONIZED BY TWO WORLDS 135 

of Two Worlds" was a certificate of citizenship in 
a country to which he was not native, while the 
owner of the certificate, because of his principles, 
was hurried from prison to prison. In 1784 he 
was riding on the high tide of success and popular- 
ity, but tragic days were soon to come in the life 
of America's loyal friend. 

Lafayette took his farewell of Congress at Tren- 
ton, New Jersey, where it was then in session. 
The scene was dignified and affecting. It was at 
the close of this ceremony that Lafayette pro- 
nounced that wish — one might call it a prayer — 
which has been so often quoted. 

''May this immense Temple of Freedom ever 
stand a lesson to oppressors, an example to the 
oppressed, and a sanctuary for the rights of man- 
kind! And may these happy United States at- 
tain that complete splendor and prosperity which 
will illustrate the blessings of their government, 
and in ages to come rejoice the departed souls of 
their founders." 

Following his return from America at this time, 
Lafayette made a long tour through Germany and 
Austria. His purpose was to improve himself, he 
said, by the inspection of famous fields of battle, 
by conversation with the greatest generals, and by 
the sight of well-trained troops. He visited Fred- 



136 LAFAYETTE 

erick the Great who, in the eyes of the exquisite 
Frenchman, presented a most untidy appearance 
in a dirty uniform covered over with Spanish snuff. 
He saw him review thirty-one battalions and 
seventy-five squadrons, thirty thousand men in 
all, and he admired the ^'perfectly regular machine 
wound up for forty years" by which they clicked 
off their movements. At the table of Frederick, 
Lafayette ate, at one time, with Cornwallis on one 
side and the son of the king of England on the 
other; on which occasion the Prussian despot 
indehcately amused himself by plying the young 
soldier with questions about American affairs. 
One wonders if in all his travels Lafayette caught 
any gHmpse on the horizon of a certain grim 
fortress wherein, because of his hatred of despots 
like Frederick, fate decreed that he was to be im- 
mured for five long years. 



CHAPTER XIV 
Gathering Clouds 

The great storm of the French Revolution was 
now to appear on the horizon, cHmb to its height, 
and break in terror over France. During these 
years, from 1784 to 1792, Lafayette was for most 
of the time in Paris where he took part in events of 
great importance and in such a way as to com- 
mand respect from those who sympathized with 
his Kberal ideas and to win detraction from dev- 
otees of monarchial systems. 

At first, however, no one dreamed what the 
future held for France. Lafayette busied himself 
in doing what he could to further the a£fairs of the 
United States, turning his attention to commer- 
cial questions such as he had never supposed 
would interest him. Whale-oil, for instance, be- 
came a favorite subject with him ; his services on 
behalf of that American industry were acknowl- 
edged by the seagoing people of Nantucket who 
sent him a gigantic, five-hundred-pound cheese, 

137 



138 LAFAYETTE 

the product of scores of farms, as a testimonial of 
their appreciation. 

A cause that interested him intensely was 
slavery. His views on this subject he summed up 
in 1786 in a letter to John Adams : 

''In the cause of my black brethren I feel myself 
warmly interested, and most decidedly side, so 
far as respects them, against the white part of 
mankind. Whatever be the complexion of the 
enslaved, it does not, in my opinion, alter the com- 
plexion of the crime which the enslaver commits, a 
crime much blacker than any African face. It is to 
me a matter of great anxiety and concern, to find 
that this trade is sometimes carried on under the flag 
of liberty, our dear and noble stripes, to which vir- 
tue and glory have been constant standard-bearers.'^ 

Lafayette not only had a lofty sentiment about 
the condition of the slaves, but he put his theory 
into practice by buying at great expense an estate 
in Cayenne, or French Guiana, with a large number 
of slaves whom he put under a system of educa- 
tion, with the intention of making them free as 
soon as they were fitted for economic independence. 
Madame de Lafayette interested herself in the man- 
agement of this estate; she provided pastors and 
teachers to go to Cayenne as missionaries and 
educators. 



GATHERING CLOUDS 13^ 

The experiment was going on well when the 
Revolution broke over France. Then it was 
doomed. While Lafayette was languishing in the 
dungeon at Olmutz, one of his great anxieties 
was for his Cayenne charge. He would have been 
even more unhappy if he had known that when 
the revolutionists took possession of his property, 
they caused that estate to be sold, together with 
all the slaves, who thus went back into slavery — 
a great inconsistency in those same revolutionists 
who imagined they were working for liberty and 
enfranchisement ! 

During this time Lafayette had two great in- 
terests : one, a pubHc life marked by increasing 
premonitions of national danger; the other, at 
Chaviniac where his family stayed and where he 
was instituting all sorts of reforms on his own 
estate and in the village of Chaviniac, and work- 
ing steadily for the welfare of the people who were 
dependent upon him. He founded an annual 
fair and a weekly market day. He built roads at 
his own expense. In the village he estabhshed a 
resident physician whose services the poor could 
have at any time without cost to themselves. He 
founded a weaving business and a school to teach 
the art. The agricultural advancement of America 
had interested him, so he brought a man from Eng- 



I40 LAFAYETTE 

land to teach new methods to his fanners. New 
implements were imported and new breeds of cat- 
tle were introduced. In every way he brought 
enlightenment and betterment. 

Meantime a spirit was rising that was soon to 
sweep not only over Paris but through all the 
provinces of France. Lafayette saw this storm 
coming. One day, in 1789, he was walking in the 
grand gallery of the Chateau de Chaviniac with 
a gentleman of the neighborhood. They spoke 
together of what the emancipation of the peasant 
would mean to the people of the Auvergne region. 
At that moment a group of peasants from his 
estate came in to offer Lafayette some nosegays 
and cheeses. They presented these gifts on 
bended knees, in an attitude of deep submission 
and respect. 

''There," said the neighbor, "see how little 
disposed these peasants are to receive your boasted 
emancipation; depend upon it, they think very 
little on the matter." 

''Well, well," replied Lafayette, "a few years 
hence we shall see who was right." 

They did ! The time was not far distant when 
the peasants of Auvergne, as well as the rabble of 
Paris, went singing : 



GATHERING CLOUDS 141 

Ah ! ca ira, ga, ira, ga ira ! 
Celui qui s'eleve, on I'abaissera, 
Et qui s'abaisse, on Tevera. 

Significant events followed, and on every impor- 
tant occasion Lafayette bore a part. He was a 
member of the Assembly of Notables, and he led 
a minority of the nobility who demanded the 
calling of the States General, a representative 
assembly. He presented his famous composition, 
the Declaration of Rights, modeled on Jefferson's 
Declaration of Independence. He was made by 
acclamation Colonel General of the new National 
Guard and gave them the white cockade. He 
represented the people on the great day of the oath 
of loyalty to the new constitution. For a time he 
was riding on the top wave of popularity. 

Lafayette believed in freedom for all people and 
to every man his rights. But he thought that 
France was not yet ready for the form of govern- 
ment that was succeeding in America. For France 
he believed the constitutional monarchy to be the 
best. He thought — and every one now thinks — 
that Louis XVI was a man of good intentions, 
and he believed these good intentions would show 
that monarch what was for the welfare and happi- 
ness of the people. Therefore he defended the 
king and the royal family as a p'art of the form of 



142 LAFAYETTE 

government that was the best for France. The 
newly adopted constitution appeared to him to be 
the just expression of royal authority. 

In his blind optimism Lafayette could not be- 
lieve but that his ideas would in the end have their 
proper weight. He stood with the nobiHty, rest- 
ing proudly on their good intentions, and facing 
a brute force newly awakened by the tocsin of 
liberty. To this unreasoning instinct, Hberty 
meant nothing but license. The result of putting 
this license into power meant anarchy. 

Now came Lafayette's time of difficulty. He 
was accused of conniving at the attempt of the 
king and queen to escape. Afterwards the queen 
in her trial testified that Lafayette had known 
nothing whatever of the project. Lafayette was 
also blamed for the death of Foulon, a minister 
who was hanged, beheaded, and dragged through 
the streets by the mob. The fact was that he did 
all in his power to control the mob that caused 
Foulon's death. They accused him of firing on 
the mob. That he did, in defense of the life of 
the king — first standing before the cannon to 
give his Kfe if need be. He was accused of being 
too Uberal and of being too aristocratic. He was 
burned between the two fires. The people seemed 
determined not to understand him. They said 



GATHERING CLOUDS 143 

that if Lafayette truly loved the people it was 
but another evidence that his soul was plebeian — 
his simplicity of manner and unstudied grace of 
speech were but further proofs thereof. Brutality 
and lawlessness, veiled under the name of patriotism, 
could hardly do less than hate an incorruptible man 
like Lafayette who was outspoken in his beliefs. 

A coaHtion of European powers stood ready to 
invade France and place the monarchy again on a 
secure basis. Lafayette was at the head of one of 
three armies sent to withstand the forces of the 
coalition, but his own soldiers were secretly in 
sympathy with the revolutionary frenzy. 

The end came when Lafayette defied the Jacobin 
party, and they in turn declared him a traitor and 
put a price on his head. But even at that late 
day, if there had been in France any number of 
men who possessed Lafayette's calmness, self- 
control, and generous spirit, the state might still 
have been saved from tumult and degradation. 
As it was, France turned its face away from its 
best light and hope, and Lafayette was, as Carlyle 
picturesquely said, "hooted forth over the borders 
into Cimmerian night." He put his army into the 
best order possible, and with a company of devoted 
officers and followers started for a neutral country. 

Meantime in Paris the feet of the people were 
at the threshold of the Terror. 



CHAPTER XV 

Lafayette in Prison 

Lafayette attempted to cross the frontier on 
his way to America when he was intercepted and 
taken prisoner. This was at Rochefort, on neutral 
territory. The arrest of peaceful citizens on their 
way through neutral territory to a neutral country 
was treason to all international covenant and 
courtesy; evidently, the phrase ''international 
courtesy" had not then been coined; but the act 
has been abhorred by unprejudiced military men 
the world over. 

The party were taken to Namur, thence to Wesel, 
where some were released; later, three remained 
to be imprisoned in Magdeburg. Lafayette is re- 
ported to have owned as his highest ambition that 
his name should be a terror to all kings and 
monarchs. If he made this remark, his wish was 
fulfilled; for at a meeting of a committee of the 
CoaHtion it was agreed that the ''existence of 
Lafayette was incompatible with the safety of the 
governments of Europe." 

144 



LAFAYETTE IN PRISON 145 

Following this decision, in May, 1794, the king 
of Prussia gave him into the keeping of the Emperor 
of Austria, and the dangerous prisoner, together 
with three of the officers who were with him when 
arrested, Latour-Maubourg, Bureaux-de-Pusy, and 
Lameth, were promptly carried to the strong for- 
tress of Olmiitz, high up in the gloomy Carpathian 
Mountains. Lameth nearly died and therefore 
was released, but the other two remained, not, 
however, being allowed to see or to communicate 
with their distinguished companion. 

Lafayette had no apologies to make for the 
step he had taken. Indeed, he had great hopes 
that he would escape from his captors. Friends 
were finding means to communicate with him and 
plots were forming in the undercurrents of cor- 
respondence. 

But on the whole he much preferred to take his 
liberty than to have it granted to him. If indeed 
liberty were granted, it would be with conditions 
"Hke those made by a lower class of brigands in 
the corner of a thicket," and the discussion would 
in all probability result in a shutting on him of 
quadruple doors. 

He ''much preferred to take his liberty than to 
have it granted to him." Accordingly plans were 
made. In one letter he calls for a good chart, 



146 LAFAYETTE 

arms, a passport, a wig, some drugs to insure a 
quiet night's sleep to the jailors, with instructions 
as to the dose to be given, and an itinerary for 
the route, with dangerous places indicated in it. 
They must know the exact time horses were to be 
ready, and the exact house where they were to 
stand. He was in buoyant spirits. 

"Although a sojourn of fourteen months in the 
prisons of their Majesties has not contributed to 
my health," he wrote, "still I have a strong con- 
stitution and my early habits of life, added to the 
recollection of my fetters, will enable me to make 
a very rapid journey." 

Finishing one of these letters, he says, "I hear 
them opening my first locks [the outer doors] and 
must stop writing." Latour-Maubourg adds a 
passage in his own hand. He begs for a piece of 
seaHng wax and emphasizes that Lafayette must 
surely be rescued, whether the others are or not. 

The prisoners looked out for those who were 
helping them to escape ; these helpers were to be 
protected from suspicion. To do this they put 
a manikin with a nightcap on in Lafayette's bed, 
dug a channel under the chimney, and left a coat 
in the passage well smudged with soot. 

Why none of these plans worked is not known. 
Lafayette was carted on to Neisse, but the plotting 



LAFAYETTE IN PRISON 147 

still went on. At last the grim and impregnable 
fortress of Olmiitz received the three prisoners. 
Here he could receive no letters; he could read 
no paper; he was harshly told that he should 
never again know anything of what was going on 
in the outside world ; that he was now a complete 
nonentity, a being known only by a number, and 
that no person in Europe knew where he was nor 
ever should know until his death. 

Lafayette's misery was turned to a still darker 
hue by the fact that he felt the gravest alarm for 
the welfare of Madame de Lafayette. As he was 
being carted from prison to prison, on his way 
eastward toward that final destination in the 
mountain fortress, the news that was smuggled to 
him by secret and mysterious bearers was not of a 
kind to bring peace to his mind. He heard of the 
extremes to which the revolutionary frenzy was 
carrying the Parisian people; he heard that the 
king and queen and various members of their family 
had been proscribed, denounced, and sentenced 
to death by a committee miscalled a ''Committee 
of Public Safety," and that the nobility were 
being ruthlessly sacrificed. Saddest of all this 
for him was the news that his wife, that woman 
of heroic character, of marvelous spiritual charm, 
and of Hberal and philanthropic mind, had been 



148 LAFAYETTE 

imprisoned and was in danger of perishing on the 
scaffold. This word — and nothing more ! The 
darkness of Hfe behind walls seven feet thick was 
not lightened for many a long month by any 
further news in regard to Adrienne. The thoughts 
of Lafayette in his prison were as sad as can be 
imagined. 

As months and years passed on, Lafayette may 
be forgiven if he sometimes thought that he had 
been wholly forgotten. But it was not so. It was 
not an easy matter to liberate a man whose very 
existence was a menace to every throne. The 
kings had him completely in their power — they 
wished to keep him out of sight. 

It goes without saying that to President Wash- 
ington the imprisonment of his young friend, to 
whom he was bound by strong and vital bonds of 
gratitude and friendship, was a source of genuine 
anguish. But what could he do? As Lafayette 
said, America was far away and the politics of 
Europe were tortuous. In them Washington had 
no part and no influence ; and he could not go to 
war for he had no equipment for any such exploit. 

He did, however, put in train many schemes 
designed to influence others to aid his loyal friend. 
He used the greatest secrecy ; the correspondence 
as it is preserved refers only to ''our friend" and 



'jli 



LAFAYETTE IN PRISON 149 

to ''the one you know," so that if the letters were 
lost, no one could possibly divine what was being 
done. The President sent letters to the repre- 
sentatives of the United States in both France 
and England, commanding that informal solicita- 
tions for the release of that friend of America should 
be made, and that these were to be followed by 
formal ones if necessary. He wrote to the king 
of Prussia, urging the release of his dear friend as 
an act of justice as well as a personal favor to him- 
self ; and to the Emperor of Austria, begging that 
Lafayette might be allowed to come to America. 
The letter has that thorough goodness and that 
amplitude of dignity that were characteristics of 
Washington. 

"Philadelphia, 15 May, 1796. 
"To THE Emperor of Germany: 

" It will readily occur to your Majesty that occasions may 
sometimes exist, on which official considerations would 
constrain the chief of a nation to be silent and passive, in 
relation to objects which affect his sensibility, and claim 
his interposition as a man. Finding myself precisely in 
this situation at present, I take the liberty of writing this 
private letter to your Majesty, being persuaded that my 
motives will also be my apology for it. 

"In common with the people of this country, I retain 
a strong and cordial sense of the services rendered to them 
by the Marquis de Lafayette ; and my friendship for him 
has been constant and sincere. It is natural, therefore, 



I50 LAFAYETTE 

that I should sympathize with him and his family in their 
misfortunes, and endeavor to mitigate the calamities which 
they experience ; among which, his present confinement is 
not the least distressing. 

"I forbear to enlarge on this delicate subject. Permit 
me only to submit to your Majesty's consideration whether 
his long imprisonment and the confiscation of his estates, 
and the indigence and dispersement of his family, and the 
painful anxieties incident to all these circumstances, do 
not form an assemblage of sufferings which recommend 
him to the mediation of humanity? Allow me. Sir, to be 
its organ on this occasion ; and to entreat that he may be 
permitted to come to this country, on such conditions and 
under such restrictions as your Majesty may think fit to 
prescribe. 

"As it is a maxim with me not to ask what under similar 
circumstances I would not grant, your Majesty will do me 
the justice to believe that this request appears to me to 
correspond with those great principles of magnanimity 
and wisdom, which form the basis of sound policy and dur- 
able glory. 

"May the Almighty and merciful Sovereign of the uni- 
verse keep your Majesty under his protection and guid- 



ance! 



I" 



Little by little the place where Lafayette was 
imprisoned became known to a few, and public 
sentiment was aroused to the point of bringing 
up the matter before the British Parliament. It 
was a certain General Fitzpatrick who, strange to 
say, had met Lafayette in London before he went 



LAFAYETTE IN PRISON 151 

to America, and again between battles when they 
were ranged on opposite sides of the Revolution, 
who now brought up the question. Twice he made 
a motion in favor of acting for the release of Lafay- 
ette. Fitzpatrick was the kind of man who could 
not bear to entertain the idea that there should 
exist "in any corner of British soil, in any English 
heart, conceptions so narrow as to wish to see the 
illustrious pupil of Washington perishing in a dun- 
geon on account of his political principles." Gen- 
eral Fitzpatrick's motion was seconded by General 
Tarleton, who had fought Lafayette through the 
length and breadth of Virginia. Pitt and Burke 
spoke against it. 

Lord Grey said that if asked what would be 
gained by furthering the release of Lafayette, he 
would reply that "we should exculpate ourselves 
from the suspicion of being accompHces in the 
foulest wrong that ever disgraced humanity." 
The question was put to vote and stood forty-six 
yeas and one hundred and fifty- three nays. Such 
was the composition of the British Parliament at 
that time. 

The next year Fitzpatrick renewed his efforts 
for Lafayette and proposed another motion. In 
an eloquent speech which should make his name 
honored for all time, he reviewed the former de- 



152 LAFAYETTE 

bate and paid a wonderful tribute to the character 
of Madame de Lafayette. The discussion that 
followed dwelt mainly on the question whether 
Lafayette was to be considered as a subject of the 
emperor or as a prisoner of war. The vote stood, 
yeas fifty, nays one hundred and thirty- two. Evi- 
dently the British Parhament had not made any 
great advance in the intervening year. 

Meantime secret plans were being made to 
rescue Lafayette. The beautiful AngeUca Schuyler 
Church, daughter of the American general, Phihp 
Schuyler, was then in London ; her husband, John 
Barker Church, had fought under Lafayette, and 
was now in the British Parliament. Mrs. Church 
was the sister-in-law of Alexander Hamilton, one 
of Lafayette's dearest friends among his young 
companions-in-arms, and she was in touch with a 
group of French emigres. In fact, she was the 
center of a little volcano of feeling for the exile. 

This secret circle kept up a constant communi- 
cation with Mr. Pinckney and Mr. Jay. Mrs. 
Church wrote to Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of 
State in the United States, and to many others, 
begging, pleading for help. For Lafayette, whom 
she had known in New York, her heart was con- 
stantly bleeding. 

Proceeding from a mysterious writer who signed 



LAFAYETTE IN PRISON 153 

his name ''Eleutherios," spirited articles soon be- 
gan to appear in the EngHsh newspapers, and 
thus constantly fed a flame of feehng. All sorts 
of fears for Lafayette were entertained. ''I see 
him in a dungeon," wrote one; ''I see him in Si- 
beria ; I see him poisoned ; I see him during what 
remains of his Hfe torn by the uncertainty of the 
fate of all that he loves." 

Soon after this the name of a Hanoverian doctor 
begins to appear in the documents preserved. This 
Dr. Bollman had carried one exploit through suc- 
cessfully, bringing out of Paris during the Terror 
a certain French emigre and conveying him to 
London in safety. Bollman was to be engaged by 
the London group to start out and see what could 
be done for Lafayette. This scheme resulted in 
a great adventure in which an American youth 
figured nobly. 



CHAPTER XVI 

An Attempted Rescue 

The hope that potentates and governments 
might take up the cause of Lafayette began to 
fail and other plans were made. Chivalric dreams 
of going to seek the place where he was confined 
and effect what seemed the impossible — a per- 
sonal rescue — began to haunt the minds of daring 
youths. A letter is on record from a young man 
who wrote to Washington to ask if he might not 
have permission to go and seek Lafayette, and, if 
possible, conduct him and his family to America. 
Washington told him that all was being done that 
could be done, and that personal attempts would 
only result in failure. But there was another 
enterprising soul who did not wait for permission 
— he acted upon his own initiative. The story of 
that splendid young American must now be told. 

Francis Kinloch Huger was the first child that 
Lafayette saw after he landed in America. It will 
be remembered that the little company of adven- 

IS4 



AN ATTEMPTED RESCUE 155 

turers first touched shore on the country estate of 
Major Benjamin Huger, at Prospect Hill, near 
Charleston, South Carolina. Here Lafayette was 
received hospitably and sent on in his host's car- 
riage to Charleston. 

The child Francis was then five years old and 
was the young representative of a remarkable 
family of Huguenot extraction. The first Daniel 
Huger came from Loudon, France, soon after the 
Edict of Nantes, and his descendants to-day num- 
ber six thousand; among them are found a 
large number of distinguished names. Five Huger 
brothers held important positions in Revolution- 
ary times. Three served in the war; Brigadier 
General Isaac Huger was second in command to 
General Greene at Guilford Court House; Lieu- 
tenant Colonel Frank Huger was promoted from 
Moultrie's Regiment to be Quartermaster General 
of the Southern Army of the Revolution; and 
Major Benjamin Huger, Lafayette's host and the 
father of the child Francis, was killed in 1780 
before the Knes at Charleston. Of the other two 
brothers in this remarkable family group, Daniel 
was one of Governor Rutledge's Privy Council and 
later a member of Congress, and John was on the 
Council of Safety and Secretary of State. 

The boy Francis thus came from a stock of 



156 LAFAYETTE 

stalwart men. He was eight years old when his 
father was killed at Charleston. The pity of it 
was driven into his young soul when the ignominy 
of that defeat was accomplished. 

Immediately after that event young Huger was 
sent to England to acquire a medical education. 
Later he, as the custom was, went on his travels 
and to hear lectures at great seats of learning. But 
the passion for chivalric action that was inspiring 
youth everywhere he could not quell. He dreamed 
of finding Lafayette. 

Meantime, American, English, and French 
friends of the illustrious prisoner were busy in 
London, and they had commissioned the ''Han- 
overian doctor," known as Dr. Bollman, to make 
a search for him. This man made careful 
preparations. He traveled in a leisurely way 
through Germany in the guise of a wealthy and 
philanthropic physician. He let it be known 
that he was a sort of follower of Cagliostro, a 
notorious Italian whose ideas were popular at 
the time. He treated the poor free of charge 
and he showed a special interest in prisoners. 

At last he reached Olmiitz, a journey at that 
time something Hke going from New York to 
Nome. He made acquaintance with the attend- 
ing physician of the garrison and was invited to 



AN ATTEMPTED RESCUE 157 

dinner. He in return asked the surgeon to dine 
with him at his inn. The dinner was sumptuous. 
M. de Colombe, who tells this part of the story, 
says that the wine was especially excellent. No 
one could distrust a simple-hearted doctor, an 
unselfish student of mankind, and especially one 
who ordered such delicious wine! In time, con- 
versation turned upon prisoners of note. It was 
rumored, hinted the artful and ingenious doctor, 
that there was such an one at Olmiitz. Could this 
be true? It was even so, the unsuspecting sur- 
geon admitted; the great Lafayette was under 
his close care. The doctor inquired for Lafayette's 
health and was told that it was fairly good. Dr. 
B oilman ventured to send his compliments to the 
prisoner with a message that he had lately left 
Lafayette's friends in England. The unsuspecting 
surgeon carried the innocent message. 

On another occasion he brought word that 
Lafayette would like to know who those friends 
were. The doctor tried to speak the names, but 
could not pronounce them so that the Austrian 
could understand them. He felt in his pocket 
for a bit of paper (which he had carefully placed 
there beforehand) and on it wrote the names 
which he sent to Lafayette. These words also 
were written on the paper : 



158 LAFAYETTE 

^'If you read this with as much care as did your 
friend at Magdeburg, you will receive equal 
satisfaction." 

The reference was to a prisoner at Magdeburg 
who received a book which contained messages 
written on the flyleaves in lemon juice. He held 
the book to the fire and by doing this the written 
words came out in brown lines and could be read. 
Lafayette took the hint, and discovered the mes- 
sage written with this invisible ink on the bit of 
paper. After this B oilman was allowed to lend 
Lafayette a book to read. It came back with 
lemon-juice messages on its margins. Lafayette 
wrote that he was sometimes allowed to drive, 
and as he was unknown to Bollman, he suggested 
a signal by which he could be recognized. He 
said that his lieutenant was a sheepish dolt, and 
that his corporal was covetous, treacherous, and 
cowardly. He added that the rides were allowed 
for the sake of his health. It appears that the 
government did not wish to arouse the frenzy of 
indignation that would follow if Lafayette were 
allowed to die in prison, so he was occasionally 
taken out to ride a league or even two from the 
fortress gate. If a rescuer and a trusty helper 
should appear, they could surely effect the escape. 
Lafayette would agree to frighten the cowardly 



AN ATTEMPTED RESCUE 159 

little corporal himself; they need not provide a 
sword for him, for he would take the corporal's. 
An extra horse, one or two horses along the road 
— it could easily be done. It was a bold plan, 
but the bolder the plan, the more unexpected it 
was, and the better chance of success. Every 
day he would watch for them along the road. 

After securing this definite information, the 
doctor retired to Vienna to make further plans. 

This account may be in some respects the later 
elaboration of a story many times retold. But it 
sounds probable. At any rate, in some such 
way Dr. B oilman gained communication with 
Lafayette's cell, and brought the welcome news 
that friends were working for him. Then they 
projected a plan. 

The story is again taken up in a coffeehouse 
in Vienna where B oilman is accustomed to go. 
Lafayette has suggested an assistant, and B oilman 
realizes that he can do nothing without one. 
Therefore he is looking about to find one who 
shall have spirit and fitness for the work. We 
see him now at the supper table, eagerly convers- 
ing with a certain young American, like himself a 
medical student on his travels. Curiously enough, 
it is Francis Kinloch Huger, now twenty-one years 
old. They talk of America. Bollman, with elab- 



l6o LAFAYETTE 

orate inadvertence, touches on the personality 
of Lafayette. The young man relates his childish 
memory of the arrival of that enthusiastic youth 
when he first came ashore at his father's South 
CaroHna country place. Bollman tests Huger in 
various ways and makes up his mind that this is 
the best possible person to help him. He broaches 
the subject. Young Huger is only too ready — 
this very enterprise has been his dearest thought 
and his dream. The danger does not daunt him. 
*'He did not let the grass grow under his feet," 
said his daughter years later, ''but accepted at 
once." 

It was not, however, purely romantic sentiment 
with him; he did not accede on the impulse of a 
moment. "I felt it to be my duty to give him all 
the aid in my power," said Colonel Huger to 
Josiah Quincy many years later. And though he 
may not have been conscious of it at the time, 
there was still another reason, for he admitted, 
long afterwards,''! simply considered myself the 
representative of the young men of America and 
acted accordingly." 

The story may here be taken up almost in the 
words of Colonel Huger's daughter who wrote it 
down exactly as her father related it. 

In October, 1794, they set out from Vienna in a 



fi 



/ / 




Francis Kinloch Huger. 
This bas-relief by the sculptor R. Tait McKenzie, shows the brave young 
Amencan who with Dr. Bollman, attempted to rescue Lafayette from the 
great fortress of Olmutz. 



AN ATTEMPTED RESCUE i6i 

light traveling carriage and with two riding 
horses, one of them being strong enough to carry 
two persons if necessary. They intended to ap- 
pear in the characters of a young Englishman and 
his traveling tutor, and they were provided with 
passes for the long journey. With assumed 
carelessness they proceeded toward Olmiitz. The 
gentlemen were generally riding, while their serv- 
ants and the baggage were in the carriage. They 
went to the same inn where Dr. B oilman had stayed 
on his former visit. Here they remained two days, 
while they secretly sent a note to Lafayette and 
received his answer. They paid their bill at the 
inn, sent their carriage on ahead to a village called 
Hoff, and directed their servants to await them 
there. 

Now B oilman and Huger are riding leisurely 
along the level plain that surrounds the fortress. 
The huge, dark prison looms in the distance. 
Every portion of the wide plain is visible to the 
sentinels at the gates, and within reach of the 
cannon on the walls. It is market day and many 
persons are passing back and forth. The two 
foreign travelers look in every direction for the 
carriage which may bring Lafayette. Both are 
eager for his coming. 

At last they notice a small phaeton being driven 



1 62 LAFAYETTE 

slowly along. In the carriage they see a prisoner 
in a blue greatcoat with an officer beside him and 
an armed soldier riding behind. They spur on, 
and, as they pass, the prisoner gives the sign 
agreed upon. He raises his hat and wipes his 
forehead. The feelings excited by the assurance 
that this was indeed Lafayette, Huger never to 
his dying day forgot. The riders look as indiffer- 
ent as possible, bow slightly, and pass on. 

The phaeton stops at the side of the road and 
Lafayette alights. He draws the officer toward 
a footpath that runs along the highroad at that 
point, and appears to be leaning on the officer as 
if scarcely able to walk. 

"This must be the time," cries Bollman. 

''He signs to us," says Huger in great excite- 
ment. 

The two young men put spurs to their horses 
and dash up together. As they approach, La- 
fayette seizes the officer's sword. A struggle 
follows. Bollman leaps from his horse and throws 
the bridle to Huger. But the flash of the drawn 
sword has frightened the horse ; he dashes aside 
and gallops away. Huger dismounts, passes his 
arm through his bridle, and he and Bollman seize 
the soldier and tear his hands from Lafayette's 
throat. The soldier runs toward the town, shout- 



AN ATTEMPTED RESCUE 163 

ing and waving his cap to call the attention of the 
sentinels. 

What was to be done? They had now but one 
horse. The alarm had been given. Not a minute 
could be lost. 

Huger gave his horse to Lafayette and told him 
hurriedly to go to Hoff, the rendezvous agreed 
upon. Lafayette mounted the horse and started 
out. But he could not bear to leave his two 
rescuers in such a plight, so he came back to ask if 
he could not do something for them. 

''No, no!" they cried. ''Go to Hoff! Go to 
Hofif !" they repeated. ''We will follow." 

Now if they had said this in French, if they had 
said "Allez a Hoff," Lafayette would have under- 
stood the direction. But not knowing the name 
of this near-by village, he misunderstood. He 
thought the English words meant only "Go off!" 
A fatal misunderstanding ! 

Huger and B oilman soon released their oiEcer 
and both mounted the remaining horse. He was 
not used to "carrying double." The insulted 
creature set his feet in a ditch and threw them both. 
Bollman was stunned. Huger lifted him up and 
then started off to recover the horse. On the way 
he was thinking what course he should take in 
this critical and dangerous juncture. 



1 64 LAFAYETTE 

When he came back he had decided. He said 
that B oilman should take the horse and follow 
Lafayette, for B oilman knew German and could 
give more help than he could. Alarm guns were 
beginning to be fired from the battlements, and 
trains of soldiers were seen issuing from the gates ; 
but these portentous signs did not influence him. 
B oilman was persuaded; he mounted, put spurs 
to his horse, and was soon out of sight. Young 
America stood alone on this wide, dangerous plain ; 
the shadow of that ominous fortress fell gloomily 
on its border. The guards came down. Between 
two rows of fixed bayonets Huger passed into the 
fortress. 

The bold plan was doomed to complete failure ! 
Lafayette rode twenty miles ; but the blood on 
his greatcoat awakened suspicion ; he was arrested 
and carried back to Olmiitz where a heavier and 
gloomier imprisonment awaited him. 

The same fate awaited Bollman ; but Lafayette's 
despair was the deeper because he feared that his 
brave rescuers had been executed for their gallant 
attempt in his behalf. 

The imprisonment accorded to the intrepid 
young American was as vile and cruel as any 
devised in the Dark Ages. He was put in a cell 
almost underground, with but one small slit near 



« 



AN ATTEMPTED RESCUE 165 

the top to let in a little light. A low bench and 
some straw formed the furnishings, while two 
chains Hnked him at ankle and wrist to the ceiHng. 
To make things a trifle more cheerful for him, they 
showed him a prisoner in a cell which was only a 
walled hole in the ground ! The prisoner had been 
there for many years and his name and residence 
were now utterly forgotten. The jailers also 
exhibited their expert method of swift decapita- 
tion and acted out the method with a large two- 
bladed sword. Daily questionings of a cruel 
kind were used in order to force him to confess 
the truth — or rather what they wished to be- 
Heve was the truth — that he had been the agent 
of a widespread plot. He stated that it was 
no man's plot but his own. They threatened 
torture, but he did not flinch or change his 
statement. 

At last the officers were convinced that there 
had been no concerted plot. They then softened 
the rigors of Huger's imprisonment, gave him a 
cell with a window where a star could sometimes 
be seen, and lengthened his chains so that he could 
take as many as three whole steps. After a time 
he managed to get into communication with Boll- 
man who was in the room above. With a knotted 
handkerchief Bollman lowered a Httle ink in a 



1 66 LAFAYETTE 

walnut shell from his window, together with a 
scrap of dingy paper. Huger then wrote a letter 
of a few lines only to General Thomas Pinckney, 
then American Minister at London. His entreaty 
was to let his mother know that he was still ahve ; 
also to let Lafayette's friends know that he would 
certainly have escaped but that he had been 
recognized as an Olmiitz prisoner in a small town 
where he changed his horse ; and that he had al- 
ready mounted a fresh one when stopped. Huger's 
letter ended with the words, ''Don't forget us. 
F. K. H. Olmiitz, Jan. 5th, 1795." By bribery and 
cajolery they started this letter off. 

Suffice it to say at present that, through the 
intervention of General Pinckney, the two young 
men were finally released and made their way 
swiftly out of the country. It was well that they 
hurried, for the emperor decided they had been 
released too soon and sent an edict for their re- 
arrest. They had, however, by that time crossed 
the Hne and were out of his domain. 

After a short stay in London, Huger started for 
America. The passengers on his ship discussed 
the story of Lafayette's attempted rescue through 
the entire six weeks of the voyage, and they never 
dreamed that their quiet young fellow-passenger 
was one of the rescuers until he received an ova- 



AN ATTEMPTED RESCUE 167 

tion on landing. This is related by the only mem- 
ber of the Huger family Kving to-day (1916) 
who heard the story of the attempted rescue from 
the lips of ''Colonel Frank" himself, as the family 
affectionately call him. She says that Colonel 
Frank was the most silent of men. He was the 
kind that do more than they talk. 

When Huger reached Philadelphia, he called 
at once on President Washington and told him of 
the effort he had made. The President said that 
he had followed the whole course of events with 
the greatest solicitude and had wished that it 
might have met with the success it deserved. 

In time Colonel Huger married the second 
daughter of General Thomas Pinckney who had ef- 
fected his release from Olmiitz and under whom he 
fought in the war of 181 2 ; he had eleven children 
and made his home on a large estate in the high- 
lands of South CaroHna. When Congress pre- 
sented Lafayette with an extensive section of land, 
he asked Huger to share it with him. Colonel 
Huger thanked him for the generous offer, but 
sturdily announced that he himself was able to 
provide for his daughters and that his sons should 
look out for themselves. His faith in his sons was 
justified, for they made good their father's opinion 
of their abiHty. Among his children and grand- 



1 68 LAFAYETTE 

children were many who not only amassed goodly 
fortunes but held honored positions in public and 
miHtary affairs. 

When Lafayette made his memorable visit to 
America in 1824, he said that the one man in the 
country whom he most wished to see was the one 
who when a youth had attempted to rescue him 
from Olmiitz. Colonel Huger had a corresponding 
desire to see Lafayette. On the General's arrival 
he started north at once, reached New York, and 
sought out the lodgings of Lafayette early in the 
morning, in order that their first meeting might 
be entirely without interruption. No account of 
that meeting has ever been made pubHc, but the 
rescuer and his champion were together most of the 
time during that patriotic journey. Josiah Quincy 
once had the privilege of driving Colonel Huger in 
his coach through the suburbs of Boston and of 
calling with him upon many distinguished per- 
sonages. Huger charmed and delighted every one. 
Josiah Quincy said that he had that "charm of a 
high-bred southerner which wrought with such 
pecuKar fascination upon those inheriting Puritan 
blood." Besides his attractive personaHty, there 
was the romantic association with the attempted 
rescue. Scott's novels were then in the full 
blossom of popularity; but there was no hero in 



AN ATTEMPTED RESCUE 169 

all those brave tales whose adventures appeared 
more chivalrous and thrilling. 

To be sure, the effort at rescue had resulted in 
failure. Lafayette remained in prison. But it 
was known where he was, and, what was better, 
word had been conveyed to him that he was not 
forgotten. Yet the conditions of his imprisonment 
were now more severe than before, and his mind 
must have suffered intensely from being thrown 
back upon itself after that one hour's prospect of 
liberty. 

On the way from Wesel to Magdeburg Lafayette 
had had a moment's conversation with a stranger 
who told him something of what was happening 
in Paris, and of the lawlessness and carnage of the 
Reign of Terror. Lafayette saw to what lengths 
an unregulated mob might go, even when originally 
inspired by a noble passion for Hberty. He heard 
of the death of Louis XVI, and called it an as- 
sassination. He reaHzed that these things were 
being done in France by the people in whom he 
had so bHndly, so persistently, beheved. He was 
deeply disappointed. Yet he did not quite lose 
faith. The cause of the people was still sacred 
to him ; they might destroy for him whatever 
charm there had been in what he called the ''deli- 
cious sensation of the smile of the multitude"; 



lyo LAFAYETTE 

but his belief in the ultimate outcome for demo- 
cratic government, as the best form of government 
for the whole world, remained unchanged. 

And in the prison at Olmiitz he celebrated our 
great holiday, the Fourth of July, as usual. 



CHAPTER XVII 
A Welcome Release 

More than a year had passed after the attempt 
at rescue when one day Lafayette heard the big 
keys turning in the several locks, one after another, 
that barred his cell, and in a moment his wife 
and two daughters stood before his amazed eyes ! 
Could this be true, or was it a vision? 

It will be remembered that shortly after Lafay- 
ette's arrest he had heard that Madame de Lafay- 
ette was imprisoned and was in danger of perish- 
ing on the scaffold. A year later the news was 
smuggled to him that she was still alive. But 
what had been happening to her and to his three 
children during all these dismal years? 

Through the instrumentahty of James Monroe, 
the ambassador to France from the United States, 

— the only foreign power that in the days of the 
French Revolution would send its representative, 

— Madame de Lafayette was Hberated from an im- 
prisonment that tried her soul, even as Olmiitz 

171 



172 LAFAYETTE 

had proved and tested the spirit of her husband. 
Through all those tragic months Adrienne showed 
herself a woman of high and unswerving courage. 

Now, indeed, was the American citizenship of 
her husband — and it had included his family 
also — of value to her. Madame de Lafayette's 
first letter to Mr. Monroe shows this. This 
dignified letter is preserved in the manuscript 
department of the New York PubHc Library and 
is here printed for the first time : 

*' Having learned that a minister of the United 
States has recently arrived in France, who has 
been sent by his government and invested with 
powers representing a people in whose interests 
I have some rights that are dear to my heart, I 
have felt that such misfortunes as I have not al- 
ready suffered were no longer to be feared for me, 
that the most unjust of captivities was about to 
be at an end, and that my sufferings accompanied 
by irreproachable conduct towards the principles 
and towards the laws of my country, cause me 
to have confidence in the name of this protecting 
nation at a moment when the voice of justice is 
once more heard, and when the National Conven- 
tion is undertaking to dehver such patriots as 
have been unjustly imprisoned. I have begun to 
hope that the wishes of my heart shall be fulfilled — 



A WELCOME RELEASE 173 

that I may be returned to my children. For ten 
months I have been taken away from them. From 
the very moment of their birth they have heard 
that they have a second country, and they have the 
right to hope that they will be protected by it.'' 

Through the official authority of Mr. Monroe, 
Madame de Lafayette was given money and 
passports. When Washington first heard of her 
pHght, he sent her a reverent letter inclosing a 
thousand dollars, and he was unceasing in his cor- 
respondence with representatives in France and 
England for herself as well as for Lafayette. She 
sent her son, George Washington de Lafayette, 
to his illustrious namesake in America, and as 
*' Madame Motier, of Hartford, Connecticut," 
she, with her two young daughters, made her way 
to Hamburg where, instead of taking ship for 
America, she took carriage across the wide spaces 
of Germany and Austria. Here she gained an 
audience with the emperor, and bowing at his 
feet asked permission to go to the fortress of Olmiitz 
and stay with her husband until he was set free. 

"Your request is granted," he said; "but as 
for Lafayette — I cannot free him ; my hands are 
tied." Exactly what it was that had "tied the 
hands" of the great potentate has never been re- 
vealed. 



174 LAFAYETTE 

Her petition being granted, Madame de La- 
fayette continued her journey. Two days more 
and she and her daughters were with her husband. 

The day of their meeting was spent in trying to 
bear the joy of the reunion. Not until the 
daughters were sent to their cell did she tell La- 
fayette of the sad things that had happened. Her 
mother, her grandmother, and her sister had, 
with many friends and relatives, been led to the 
scaffold. These and many other facts of tragic 
interest to the man so long deprived of any 
word from outside his prison were shared with 
Lafayette. 

It may go without saying that Lafayette's prison 
days were now far easier to bear, except that 
to see Madame de Lafayette grow more and more 
broken in health as days went on, in their close, 
unlighted, and malodorous cells, must have caused 
an added sorrow. After a time she was obliged 
to ask the emperor to allow her to go to Vienna 
for medical attendance. He granted the request, 
but with the proviso that she should never return. 
Then she decided to remain with her husband, even 
at the risk of her Hfe. 

Shall the miseries of their prison life be dwelt 
upon? Their jailers were the coarsest of human 
beings. They surpassed in brutality the slave 



A WELCOME RELEASE 175 

drivers of Constantinople. The food, which the 
family bought for themselves, was coarse and 
miserably cooked. Tobacco floated in the coffee. 
Lafayette's clothes were in tatters. When his 
shoes had been soled fifteen times and resented the 
indignity any further, his daughter Anastasie 
took it upon herself to make shoes for him out of 
an old coat. 

Lafayette's dingy cell was, however, now 
brightened by companionship and by inspiring con- 
versation. Even work was going on, for Madame 
de Lafayette prepared a Hfe of her mother while 
she was at Olmiitz. It was written with a tooth- 
pick and a little lampblack on the margins of a 
copy of Buffon which she succeeded in obtaining. 
One of the daughters amused the family by making 
pencil sketches ; one of the burly old turnkey, with 
his sword, candle, and keys, and his hair in a 
comical queue behind, amused the family very 
much and was carried with them when they left 
their dismal abode. 

Before the desolate prison of Olmiitz fades from 
our view, let one laurel wreath be placed upon the 
head of young FeHx Pontonnier, sixteen years old 
when he became the servant of Lafayette, whom 
he faithfully followed into prison. He was with 
Lafayette when he was arrested and was bidden 



176 LAFAYETTE 

to look after his master's belongings; so he was 
separated from him for several days. This gave 
him an excellent opportunity to escape, but he re- 
fused to take advantage of it. Of his own accord 
he joined Lafayette once more, and during the 
whole long season of his captivity he gave ample 
proof of his devotion. He possessed a rare in- 
ventive genius and was constantly on the alert 
to devise means for making the prisoners com- 
fortable and to find out ways for carrying on 
secret correspondence. He invented a special 
language known only to himself and to the pris- 
oners, and also a unique gesture-language. He 
w^histled notes like a captive bird; with varied 
modulations he conveyed to the prisoners what- 
ever news he could ferret out. Prison Hfe proved 
to be bad for him, and his health was several 
times endangered. For a fancied offense he was 
once confined in total darkness for three months. 
But none of his sufferings dashed his gay spirits. 
He was constantly sustained by a buoyant cheer, 
and his wonderful devotion should win him a 
place among heroes. After the ^ve years of captiv- 
ity were over, Lafayette made Felix the manager 
of his farm at La Grange. He filled this position 
with success and probity. 
It was through the fiat of Napoleon Bonaparte 



A WELCOME RELEASE 177 

that the removal of Lafayette from Olmiitz was 
made possible. Bonaparte was influenced by a 
long-sighted poKcy; he desired to win to himself 
the man of so unique a personaHty. He was also 
spurred on by various writers and diplomats, by 
representatives of the French Directory, and by 
Brigadier General Henri Jacques Guillaume Clarke, 
who was for a time governor of Vienna and who 
won the title of "the incorruptible" from Napo- 
leon. President Washington's dignified and ef- 
fective letter to the Emperor of Austria is beheved 
to have left its mark; and in a thousand ways 
pubHc opinion had awakened to the ignominy 
of leaving such a man as Lafayette in prison. 
Lafayette disHked to be indebted to anybody but 
himself for an escape from his dungeon ; but he 
wilHngly admitted that he owed much to his 
devoted wife whose many letters imploring help 
for her husband were among the causes that un- 
locked the double-barred doors of Ohniitz. 

When finally released, Lafayette was taken in 
a carriage from Olmiitz to Dresden, thence by way 
of Dresden, Leipzig, and Halle to Hamburg, where 
the American consul received him. So wearied was 
Madame de Lafayette that she made the journey 
with the greatest difficulty, and a voyage to America 
at that time was out of the question. The family, 



1 78 LAFAYETTE 

therefore, took refuge in an obscure town in Hol- 
land, since there was no other European country 
where the monarchy would be safe if it conferred 
the right of residence upon any man who bore 
the name of Lafayette. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
A Triumphal Tour 

For some years events did not shape themselves 
so that Lafayette could return to Paris. That he, 
in 1799, was considering the possibility of a voyage 
to America is shown by a letter written in that year 
to his ''deliverer/' Francis Elinloch Huger, which 
his descendant of the same name has kindly al- 
lowed to be printed here. It was sent from Vianen 
in Holland, and introduces his fellow-prisoner, 
M. Bureaux-de-Pusy, who was seeking a home in 
the United States. 

Vianen, 17th April, 1799. 
My dear Huger : 

Here is one of my companions in captivity, Bureaux 
Pusy, an Olmiitz prisoner, and at these sounds my heart 
vibrates with the sentiments of love, gratitude, admiration, 
which forever bind and devote me to you! How I envy 
the happiness he is going to enjoy ! How I long, my dear 
and noble friend, to fold you in my arms ! Pusy will re- 
late to you the circumstances which hitherto have kept 
me on this side of the Atlantic — even now the illness of my 
179 



i8o LAFAYETTE 

wife, and the necessity of her having been a few weeks in 
France before I set out, prevent me from embarking with 
Pusy and his amiable family. But in the course of the 
summer I shall look over to you and with inexpressible 
delight I shall be welcomed by my beloved deliverer. No 
answer from you has yet come to me. We are expecting 
every day my friend McHenry's nephew — perhaps I may 
be blessed with a letter from you'! 

I need not recommend to you Bureaux Pusy. The 
conspicuous and honorable part he has acted in the French 
Revolution, his sufferings during our imprisonment — you 
but too well know what it is — are sufficient introductions 
to your great and good heart. He is one of the most ac- 
complished men that can do honour to the country where 
he is born, and to the country where he wishes to become a 
citizen. He is my excellent friend. Every service, every 
mark of affection he can receive from you and your friends, 
I am happily authorized to depend upon. 

My son is gone to Paris. My wife and my two daugh- 
ters, who love you as a brother, present you with the 
sincere, grateful expressions of their friendship. The last 
word George told me at his setting out was not to forget 
him in my letter to you. He will accompany me to 
America. 

Adieu, my dear Huger, I shall to the last moment of my 
life be wholly 

Yours, 

Lafayette. 

The wish to revisit the land of his adoption was 
strong, but many years were to pass before it could 
be carried out. He was forty years old when he 



A TRIUMPHAL TOUR i8i 

was liberated from Olmiitz, and he was sixty-seven 
when he paid his last visit to our shores. 

He little dreamed of the reception he was to 
find, for the whole American people were waiting 
to greet, with heart and soul, the man who, in 
his youth, had taken so noble a part in their strug- 
gle for freedom. He reached New York on the 
i6th of August, 1824. He came with modest 
expectation of some honorable attentions — noth- 
ing more. On the Cadmus he asked a fellow-trav- 
eler about the cost of stopping at American hotels 
and of traveling in steamboats and by stage ; of 
this his secretary, M. Levasseur, made exact 
note. He came to visit the interesting scenes of 
his youth and to enjoy a reunion with a few sur- 
viving friends and compatriots. Instead, he found 
a whole country arising with one vast impulse to 
do him honor. It was not mere formaHty; it 
was a burst of whole-souled welcome from an en- 
tire nation. So astonished was he, so overcome, 
to find a great demonstration awaiting him, where 
he had expected to land quietly and to engage 
private lodgings, that his eyes overflowed with tears. 

The harbor of New York was entered on a Sun- 
day. He was asked to accept a sumptuous enter- 
tainment on Staten Island till Monday, when he 
could be received by the city with more honor. 



i82 LAFAYETTE 

On that day citizens and officers, together with 
old Revolutionary veterans, attended him. Amid 
the shouting of two hundred thousand voices he 
reached the Battery. The band played *'See the 
Conquering Hero Comes," the "Marseillaise," and 
''Hail, Columbia." Lafayette had never dreamed 
of such a reception or of such sweeps of applause. 
The simple-hearted loyalty of the American people 
had a chance to show itself, and their enthusiasm 
knew no bounds. Lafayette's face beamed with 
joy. Four white horses bore him to the City Hall, 
while his son, George Washington Lafayette, his 
secretary, M. Levasseur (who wrote an account of 
the whole journey of 1824), and the official com- 
mittee followed in carriages. The mayor addressed 
the city's guest; and Lafayette's reply was the 
first of many hundred appropriate and graceful 
speeches made by him during the journey. There 
were many ceremonies; school children threw 
garlands of flowers in his way; corner stones 
were laid by him ; squares were renamed for 
*' General Lafayette" (as he assured everybody 
he preferred to be called by that title) , and societies 
made him and his son honorary members for Hfe. 

Hundreds of invitations to visit different cities 
poured in. The whole country must be traveled 
over to satisfy the eagerness of a grateful nation. 



A TRIUMPHAL TOUR 183 

Are republics ungrateful ? That can never be said 
of our own republic after Lafayette's visit to the 
United States in 1824. 

He set out for Boston by way of New Haven, 
New London, and Providence. All along the way 
the farmers ran out from the fields, shouting wel- 
comes to the cavalcade, and children stood by the 
roadside decked with ribbons on which the pic- 
ture of Lafayette was printed. Always a barouche 
with four white horses was provided to carry him 
from point to point. It was not a bit of vanity on 
the part of Lafayette that he was ever seen behind 
these steeds of snowy white. President Washing- 
ton had set the fashion. His fine carriage-horses 
he caused to be covered with a white paste on 
Saturday nights and the next morning to be 
smoothed down till they shone Hke silver. It 
was a wonderful sight when that majestic man was 
driven to church — the prancing horses, the out- 
riders, and all. And when Lafayette came, noth- 
ing was too good for him ! The towns sent out 
the whitest horses harnessed to the best coaches 
procurable, — cream color, canary color, or claret 
color, — for the hero to be brought into town or 
sped upon his way departing. Returning to New 
York by way of the Connecticut River and the 
Sound, he found again a series of dinners and 



I 84 LAFAYETTE 

toasts, as well as a ball held in Castle Garden, the 
like of which, in splendor and display, had never 
before been thought of in this New World. 

Lafayette left the festivity before it was over in 
order to take the boat, at two in the morning, to 
go up the Hudson River. He arose at six to show 
his son and his secretary the place where Andre 
was captured. As soon as the fog Hfted, he de- 
scribed, in the most enthusiastic manner, the 
Revolutionary events which he had seen. 

At West Point there was a grand banquet. One 
of the speakers alluded to the fact that at Valley 
Forge, when the soldiers were going barefooted, 
Lafayette provided them with shoes from his own 
resources, and then proposed this toast : 

"To the noble Frenchman who placed the Army 
of the Revolution on a new and better footing!" 

At the review of the cadets. Generals Scott and 
Brown, in full uniform, with tall plumes in their 
hats, stood by General Lafayette. The three, 
each towering nearly six feet in height, made a 
magnificent tableau, declares one record of the day. 

Returning from the Hudson River excursion, 
the party went southward, visiting Philadelphia, 
Baltimore, and Washington. With ceremonies of 
great dignity Congress received Lafayette, and 
later voted him a present of two hundred thousand 



A TRIUMPHAL TOUR 185 

dollars, together with a whole township anywhere 
he might choose in the unappropriated lands of 
the country. 

Among other places visited was Yorktown, where 
the party attended a brilliant celebration. The 
marks of battle were still to be seen on many houses, 
and broken shells and various implements of war 
were found scattered about. An arch had been 
built where Lafayette stormed the redoubt, and on 
it were inscribed the names of Lafayette, Hamil- 
ton, and Laurens. Some British candles were 
discovered in the corner of a cellar, and these 
were burned to the sockets while the old soldiers 
told tales of the surrender of Yorktown. 

The party visited other places connected with 
the campaign in Virginia. Lafayette called on ex- 
President Jefferson at Monticello, his stately home 
near Charlottesville, Virginia, and was conducted 
by Jefferson to the University of Virginia in 
Charlottesville. 

Charleston was the next stopping-place; this 
was the home of the Huger family. Here were 
more combinations of ''Yankee Doodle" and the 
^' Marseillaise," more laying of corner stones, more 
deputations, more dinners, more pubhc balls. 
It is not difficult to understand how it happened 
that, in the last half of the nineteenth century. 



1 86 LAFAYETTE 

there were so many old ladies living who could 
boast of having danced with Lafayette in their 
youth. 

Proceeding on their way by boat and carriage, 
the company came to Savannah, and thence moved 
across Georgia and Alabama, down the river to 
the Gulf of Mexico, along the shore to the mouth 
of the Mississippi, and up the "grand riviere" to 
St. Louis. "Vive Lafayette" was the universal 
cry all the way. 

All the cities vied with each other in doing honor 
to the nation's guest. At Pittsburg, for instance, 
a bedroom was prepared for the distinguished 
visitor in a hall that had been a Masonic lodge 
room. The ceiling was arched, and the sun, moon, 
and stars were painted upon it. The bed pre- 
pared for Lafayette was a vast "four-poster" of 
mahogany, on whose posts were inscribed the 
names of Revolutionary heroes. Above the canopy 
a large gilt eagle spread its wings and waved a 
streamer on which were written the names of 
Washington and Lafayette. In this city, as every- 
where, Lafayette was shown everything notable, 
including all the foundries and factories. 

As usual, the hero left the city in a coach shining 
with the freshest paint, and drawn by four white 
steeds. 



A TRIUMPHAL TOUR 187 

At Buffalo, after a visit to Niagara, they em- 
barked on the newly-built Erie Canal. Then fol- 
lowed a part of the journey that was much en- 
joyed by Lafayette — the beautiful country of 
central New York. He was charmed with this 
bit of travel after the long distances between towns 
in the western region. 

Syracuse was the next stopping-place. The 
carriage in which Lafayette traveled into that 
City of Sixty Hills was kept for many decades as 
a precious treasure. Not many years ago it was in 
a barn back of one of the houses on James Street 
in that city. Now, however, after wandering from 
place to place and taking part in various pageants, 
it may be seen in the celebrated village of Coopers- 
town, where the young folks, when they attire 
themselves in Revolutionary costume, may ride 
as bride or coachman, as shown in the picture. 

Lafayette reached the ^'Village of Syracuse'' at 
six o'clock in the morning. The people had been 
watching all night for the arrival of the illustrious 
guest and were still watching when the colors of 
the illuminations were melting into those of sun- 
rise. The guest of honor had been in his carriage 
all night and must have been weary, but he gayly 
asserted that the splendid supper that had been 
prepared the night before made an excellent break- 



1 88 LAFAYETTE 

fast, and he spent the three hours allotted to that 
"village" in shaking hands with the hundreds of 
people whose desire to see him had kept them 
waiting all night. 

At nine o'clock he bade good-by to his friends of 
a day and embarked upon the packet boat of the 
canal, while the air resounded with good wishes 
for his voyage. Through Rome they passed by 
night in an illumination that turned darkness into 
daylight, and at every place they received deputa- 
tions from the city just ahead of the one where they 
were. There were cannon to welcome and cannon 
to bid farewell. At Utica three Oneida chiefs de- 
manded an interview on the score of having been 
Lafayette's helpers in 1778. They were very old 
but still remarkably energetic. Lafayette begged 
them to accept certain gifts of silver, and they went 
away happy. 

The traveling was now hastened in order that 
General Lafayette might reach Boston by the 
Fourth of July, 1825, and take part in laying 
the corner stone of Bunker Hill Monument. This 
event in our national history has been described 
by Josiah Quincy in his "Figures of the Past" 
and by many others. It was a great national 
celebration, and a general meeting of Revolutionary 
comrades, one of whom wore the same coat he 



A TRIUMPHAL TOUR 189 

had worn at the battle of Bunker Hill, almost half 
a century before, and could point to nine bullet- 
holes in its texture. Daniel Webster delivered 
his grand oration. All Boston was on the alert. 
There were a thousand tents on the Common, and 
a dinner to which twelve hundred persons sat 
down. General Lafayette gave a reception to 
the ladies of the city. Then there was a ball — 
with the usual honor bestowed. Everybody was 
proud and happy to have General Lafayette as 
a national guest on that great day. 

One more incident must be related. In July 
of 1825 the people of Brooklyn were erecting an 
Apprentices' Free Library Building at the corner 
of Cranberry and Henry streets, later incorporated 
in the Brooklyn Institute, and they wished Lafay- 
ette to assist in laying the corner stone. He was 
brought to Brooklyn in great state, riding in a 
canary-colored coach drawn by four snow-white 
horses. The streets were crammed with people. 
Among them were many citizens and their wives, 
some old Revolutionary veterans, troops of Brook- 
lyn children, and a number of negroes who had 
been freed by the recent New York Emancipation 
Acts. 

Through the closely packed masses of people 
the carriage of the noble Frenchman was slowly 



190 LAFAYETTE 

driven, the antics of the impatient horses attract- 
ing the attention of the small boy as much as the 
illustrious visitor himself. As they came near the 
stand where the ceremony was to take place, 
Lafayette saw that various gentlemen were care- 
fully Ufting some Httle children over the rough 
places where soil from excavations and piles of 
cut stone had been heaped, and were helping them 
to safe places where they could see and hear. He 
at once aHghted from the carriage and came for- 
ward to assist in this work. 

Without suspecting it in the least, he was making 
another historic minute; for one of the boys he 
was thus to Hft over a hard spot was a five-year- 
old child who afterwards became known to the 
world as Walt Whitman. Lafayette pressed the 
boy to his heart as he passed him along and affec- 
tionately kissed his cheek. Thus a champion of 
liberty from the Old World and one from the New 
were Hnked in this little act of helpfulness. When 
he was an old man. Whitman still treasured the 
reminiscence as one of indescribable preciousness. 

''I remember Lafayette's looks quite well," he 
said; ''tall, brown, not handsome in the face, but 
of fine figure, and the pattern of good-nature, 
health, manhness, and human attraction." 

Through nearly all of this long and exciting jour- 



A TRIUMPHAL TOUR 191 

ney, Lafayette was accompanied by Colonel Fran- 
cis Kinloch Huger, by his secretary, and by his 
son, George Washington Lafayette, then a man full 
grown. The latter was almost overcome by the 
warmth of his father's reception. Writing to a 
friend at home, after having been in America but 
twenty days, he said : 

''Ever since we have been here my father has 
been the hero, and we the spectators, of the most 
imposing, beautiful, and affecting sights ; the most 
majestic population in the world welcoming a 
man with common accord and conducting him in 
triumph throughout a journey of two hundred 
leagues. Women wept with joy on seeing him, 
and children risked being crushed to get near to a 
man whom their fathers kept pointing out to them 
as one of those who contributed the most in pro- 
curing them their happiness and independence. 
This is what it has been reserved to us to see. I 
am knocked off my feet — excuse the expression 
— by the emotions of all kinds that I experience.'' 

Lafayette has been accused of being a spoiled 
hero. In a moment of asperity Jefferson had al- 
luded to Lafayette's love of approbation. If, in- 
deed, Lafayette did yield to that always imminent 
human frailty, and if Olmiitz had not been able to 
eradicate or subdue it, the itinerary of 1824 must 



192 LAFAYETTE 

have been to him a period of torture. He must have 
suffered from satiety to an unbearable degree, for 
praise and admiration were poured out by a grate- 
ful people to an extent not easily imagined. To 
keep up a fiction is the most wearying thing in the 
world. The only refreshing and vivifying thing 
is to be absolutely sincere. This it must be be- 
lieved Lafayette was. His simple attitude toward 
the land of his adoption was shown in a letter to 
President Monroe in which he bade farewell to a 
nation where ''in every man, woman, and child of 
a population of twelve milHon I have found a lov- 
ing, indeed an enthusiastic, friend." 

It did as much good to the American people as 
it did to Lafayette to take part in this great tide 
of gratitude and devotion. A vast, swelling emo- 
tion is unifying and it is strengthening. Our 
people made a great stride toward nationaUzation 
when Lafayette came to let us, as a people, throw 
our heart at his feet. 



CHAPTER XIX 
Last Days of Lafayette 

Mingled with the joys of Lafayette's visit to 
the United States in 1824 there was one profound 
sorrow; he no longer saw here the great man to 
whom he had given such whole-hearted devotion. 
President Washington died in 1799; and one of 
the most affecting moments of all the journey of 
1824 was when General Lafayette and his son, 
George Washington Lafayette, stood together by 
the tomb of the man whom both regarded as a 
father. 

On the centennial anniversary of the birth of 
Washington, in 1832, the 27th Regiment State 
Artillery of New York sent Lafayette a magnificent 
commemorative medal. In acknowledgment of 
this gift Lafayette wrote to the Committee, calHng 
the gift ^'si new testimony of that persevering af- 
fection which has been, during nearly sixty years, 
the pride and delight of my life to be the happy 
object. The only merit on my part which it does 
o 193 



194 LAFAYETTE 

not exceed is to be found in the warmth of my 
gratitude and the patriotic devotion that binds to 
the United States the loving heart of an adopted 
son. The honor was enhanced by the occasion — 
the birthday of the matchless Washington, of whom 
it is the most gratifying circumstance to have been 
the beloved and faithful disciple. '^ 

This attitude Lafayette never failed to hold. 
The relation between the two men was from begin- 
ning to end honorable to both in the highest de- 
gree. It was one of the great friendships of history. 

In one respect the private tastes of Washington 
and Lafayette were similar; both dearly loved a 
farm. No one can visit Mount Vernon without 
feeling the presence there of a lover of growing 
things. From this productive place fine hams and 
bacon were forwarded to Lafayette and his family 
in France and were there eaten with the keen- 
est relish. Fine birds were also sent — ducks, 
pheasants, and red partridges. In return Lafay- 
ette dispatched by request some special breeds of 
wolf hounds and a pair of jackasses ; also, strange 
trees and plants, together with varied gifts such 
as Paris only could devise. The visitor to Mount 
Vernon finds in the family dining room Lafayette's 
ornamental clock and rose jars, and his mahogany 
chair in Mrs. Washington's sitting room. The 



LAST DAYS OF LAFAYETTE 



195 



key to the Bastille, which he sent in 1789, is shown 
under a glass cover on the wall by the staircase 
in the entrance hall, and a model of that ancient 
fortress of tyranny, made from a block of stone 
from the renowned French prison, sent over in 
1793, stands in happy irony in the banquet hall. 
A bedchamber on the second floor is pointed out 
as the room in which Lafayette slept. It still 
bears his name. 

After Lafayette returned to France, he lived 
for years in semi-exile on an estate known as La 
Grange, that Madame de Lafayette had inherited. 
It lay about forty miles east of Paris, in a beautiful 
country covered with peach orchards and vine- 
yards. At the time it was, from an agricultural 
point of view, in a sadly neglected condition; 
and it was not by any means the least of the 
achievements of Lafayette that he turned his hand 
cleverly to the great task of developing this estate 
into a really productive farm, and succeeded. 
Beginning with a single plow — for he was too 
poor at first to buy numerous appliances — he grad- 
ually developed the estate into a valuable property. 
After a time he suppHed himself with fine breeds 
of cattle, sheep, and pigs; indeed, specimens of 
various kinds from all zones of the earth were sent 
him by his friends the American shipmasters, who, 



196 LAFAYETTE 

it must be remembered, appreciated the ardent 
efforts he had made to establish American com- 
merce. To Washington, who was a good farmer 
as well as a good President, every detail of these 
labors would have been interesting if he had been 
living. 

In patriarchal happiness Lafayette carried on the 
estate of eight hundred French acres, with all its 
industries, in a perfect system. In a fine old 
mansion built in the days of Louis IX, Lafayette 
hved with his two daughters and their famiHes 
under an efiicient household system. Sometimes 
twelve cousins, brothers and sisters, would be there 
together. The combined family formed a perfect 
Httle academy of its own ; and just to live at La 
Grange was an education in itself. The walls 
were covered with pictures and memorabiHa, to 
know which would mean to understand European 
and American history for a century past. A pic- 
ture of Washington had the place of honor. The 
Declaration of Independence and the Declaration 
of Rights were hung side by side. A miniature of 
Francis Kinloch Huger in a frame of massive gold 
was among the treasures. Dress swords, gifts of 
many kinds, symbols of honors, and rich historical 
records decorated the whole house. Even the 
name of the estate, La Grange, was American, for 



k 




The Children's Statue of Lafayette. 

This spirited statue, by the sculptor Paul Wayland Bartlett, was a gift to 
France from five millions of American school children. (See page 201.) 



LAST DAYS OF LAFAYETTE 197 

it was so called in honor of the Manhattan Island 
home of his friend Alexander Hamilton. 

There was one room in the chateau at La Grange 
that was more sacred than any other ; it was the 
room in which Madame de Lafayette had died. This 
chamber was never entered except on the anniver- 
sary of her death, and then by her husband alone, 
who cherished her memory tenderly and faithfully 
as long as he lived. 

Many wonderful visitors came to La Grange, 
and in later years to the Paris home of the Lafay- 
ettes. There were Irish guests to tell tales of ro- 
mance; there were Poles to plead the cause of 
their country; misguided American Indians were 
sometimes stranded there; Arabs from Algeria; 
negro officers in uniform from the French West 
Indies — all people who had the passion for free- 
dom in their hearts naturally and inevitably gravi- 
tated to Lafayette. His house was a modern 
Babel, for all languages of the world were spoken 
there. 

And Americans ! So many Americans came 
along the Rosay Road that little boys learned the 
trick of meeting any foreign-looking persons who 
spoke bad French, and announced themselves as 
guides of all the ^'Messieurs Americains"; they 
would capture the portmanteau, swing it up to a 



1 98 LAFAYETTE 

strong shoulder, and then set out for the chateau 
at the regular jog trot of a well-trained porter. 

One of these American guests was the grandson 
of General Nathanael Greene with whom Lafayette 
had had cordial relations during the Virginia cam- 
paign. In the year 1828 this grandson visited La 
Grange and wrote an account full of deHghtful, 
intimate touches, which was printed in the Atlantic 
Monthly in 186 1. Of Lafayette himself he said: 

^'In person he was tall and strongly built, with 
broad shoulders, large limbs, and a general air of 
strength. ... He had more dignity of bearing 
than any man I ever saw. And it was not merely 
the dignity of self-possession, which early famiU- 
arity with society and early habits of command 
may give even to an ordinary man, but that ele- 
vation of manner which springs from an habitual 
elevation of thought, bearing witness to the purity 
of its source, as a clear eye and ruddy cheek 
bear witness to the purity of the air you daily 
breathe. In some respects he was the mercurial 
Frenchman to the last day of his Ufe; yet his 
general bearing, that comes of tenest to my memory, 
was of calm earnestness, tempered and mellowed 
by quick sympathies." 

The death of Lafayette, on the 20th of May, 
1834, set the bells a-tolling in many lands, but in 



LAST DAYS OF LAFAYETTE 199 

none was the mourning more sincere than in our 
own. Members of Congress were commanded to 
wear the badge of sorrow for thirty days, and thou- 
sands of the people joined them in this outward 
expression of the sincere grief of their hearts. 

His services to his own country and to ours 
were many and valuable. But his personal ex- 
ample of character, integrity, and constancy was 
even more to us and to the world than his distinct 
services. What he was endeared him to us, even 
more than the things he did. He gave his whole 
soul in youth to his world-wide dream of freedom 
— freedom under a constitution guaranteeing it, 
through pubKc order, to every human being. He 
found himself in a world where monarchical govern- 
ment seemed the destiny and habit of mankind. 
He thought it a bad habit — one that ought to be 
broken. Sincerely and passionately believing this, 
he was willing to die in the service of any people 
who were ready to make the struggle against the 
existing national traditions. He made mistakes; 
he made the mistake of trusting Louis Philippe. 
In doing this he had with him the whole French 
people. But let it be said on the other hand that 
he did not make the mistake of trusting Bonaparte, 
whose blandishments he resisted during the whole 
passage of that meteor. And he was making no 



200 LAFAYETTE 

mistake when, to the very end of his life, he re- 
mained true to his love for the land he had aided 
in his youth. His visions did not all come true 
in exactly the shape he devised, but to the last he 
retained a glorious confidence that they would 
ultimately be reahzed in full. 

Lafayette was absolutely fearless. He had 
physical bravery; he was equally indomitable in 
moral and intellectual realms. He had the power 
of courage. He could decide quickly and then 
stand by the decision to the bitter end. The 
essence of his bold, adventurous youth is expressed 
in the motto he then chose, ''Cur non." But the 
confirmed and tried spirit of his full manhood is 
more truly set forth in another motto: ''Fais ce 
que dois, advienne que pourra.'^ ''Do what you 
ought, let come what may." 

For a man so possessed by a great, world-wide 
idea, so fearless, so constant, it is quite fitting 
that monuments should be erected and that his 
birthday should be celebrated. Probably there is 
no man in all history who has had so many cities, 
counties, townships, boulevards, arcades, moun- 
tains, villages, and hamlets named for him, in a 
country to which he was not native-born, as has 
the Frenchman Lafayette in the United States of 
America. Also, many notable statues of Lafayette 



LAST DAYS OF LAFAYETTE 201 

stand in city squares and halls of art, both 
in our country and in his own. Among them there 
is one special statue in which the young people of 
America have a pecuHar interest. On the 19th 
of October, 1898, five millions of American school 
children contributed to a Lafayette Monument 
Fund. With this sum a bronze statue was made 
and presented to the French Republic. Mr. Paul 
Way land Bartlett was the sculptor intrusted with 
this work. The statue was completed in 1908 and 
placed in a court of the Louvre in Paris. It was 
originally intended that the statue of Bonaparte 
should occupy the center of that beautiful court, 
but it is the statue of Lafayette that stands there 
— the "Boy" CornwalKs could not catch, the 
man Napoleon could not intimidate. No one can 
tell us just how Lafayette's statue happened to be 
assigned the place intended for Napoleon's; but 
however it was, the fact is a luminous example of 
how a man who loved people only to master and 
subjugate them did not reach the heart of the world 
so directly as the man who loved human beings for 
their own sakes and to do them good. 



Printed in the United States of America. 



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